Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/459

446 just out of sight of the house, to my—and I trust to Flora’s—entire satisfaction.

That day we drove up in a little open carriage to Lewis & Allenby’s, and there it was that my senatorial career may be said, practically, to have commenced.

Whilst Flora and I were investigating the silken treasures which were freely offered to our inspection on the counters of those eminent warehouse-men, I grieve to say that we almost got to words upon the subject of our intended purchase. It was perfectly maddening to an ardent husband, to see displayed before his enraptured gaze various forms of delicate drapery which, as he could not but be aware, would make the partner of his toils the cynosure—yes—the cynosure of every eye at the next Botanic Show, and to find that partner of those very toils, so blind to her own fascinations, so lost to all sense of the Beautiful and the Becoming, that she deliberately preferred, and would not be dissuaded from purchasing some trumpery fabric which would have entirely neutralised her advantages of feature, figure, and expression. I generally triumph in these little contests with Flora—but not without a severe struggle.

Now, as a man is a bad, or at least a partial, judge of a dispute in which he has been an active champion, I will state the subject-matter of the contention between F. and myself, and leave the decision to the judgment of the human race. The young gentleman who acted upon this occasion for the firm of L. & A. had been at the pains of bringing to us, and opening, various bales of goods: and I must say that, although we gave him a great deal of trouble, his demeanour towards us was characterised by the greatest suavity and urbanity. At length, after we had examined some fifty or sixty dresses (I am coming presently to the House of Commons and the destinies of nations), the inclination of our joint judgment was in favour of a mousseline-de-soie—a sweet thing, as F. was pleased to observe. It was a kind of delicate dove-colour, and in all respects unobjectionable. When this dress was opened I had observed that F. had stepped back a pace from the counter, and whilst she slightly moved her head from side to side, as though to contemplate the fabric under different lights, a quiet smile of satisfaction stole over her features. Her emotion was too deep for words. My mind was made up.

Jones. “I think, Flora, dear, this is the sort of thing that will do? Those dabs of flowers” (I always think that masculine dignity requires a slight infusion of contempt into one’s commendations upon these occasions); “those dabs of flowers on the what-d’ye-call-’ems—”

Flora. “Bouquets, dear, upon the skirts. They are positively charming.”

Jones. “What sort of bonnet would go with it, Flo? Some pink thing, eh?”

Flora. (Still balancing her head, and in a dreamy way.) “Pink crape, dear; I saw the very bonnet, the other day, at Mrs. Smith’s, when I went with Ada Poddle about her bridesmaid’s dress.”

Jones. “Well, that’s settled; let’s be off to Mrs. Smith’s. We’d better take the gown there, and we can get the pink bonnet at once, clap it under the seat, and drive home.”

Flora. (Compassionately didactic.) “Mrs. Smith has the greatest objection to make up one’s own materials—still—but it’s no matter.”

Why was it that Flora gave me a sort of wan, protecting smile? Why did she forbid the shopman to pack up the dress at once? Why did she request that courteous youth to show her a balzerine? I was soon to know. The young gentleman departed, and returned presently, struggling with a bale of what are called “goods.’“goods.” [sic] In the interval between his departure and return, Flora, with the mousseline-de-soie open before her, and emphasizing her periods by little taps on the very flowers which the skill of some foreign artist had depictured upon those too fascinating skirts, entered largely into the subject of our household expenses, and into the various claims of a pecuniary nature now—as she said—“hanging over us.” I protest there is not a cleaner balance-sheet in the county of Middlesex than our own; but, upon these occasions, F. has a way of going through our liabilities on a system of double-entry peculiar to herself, in which she brings forward the debits twice; and if she does not suppress the credits altogether, she introduces them in such a loose and perfunctory manner, that they seem scarcely worthy of account. Thirty cart-loads of gravel for the garden—little Jemmy’s wardrobe—the chances that the family might collectively become the victims of zymotic disease—a little trip which we had taken in Belgium, two years back, and which I have no hesitation in saying my Flora thoroughly enjoyed—and other matters of the like kind were successively paraded before my apprehension as reasons against the investment in mousseline-de-soie then under negotiation.

I confess I was very much put out. It was not so much the fact, as the inconclusive reasoning, which wounded me. No, I was not angry;—how could I be angry with that dear young face which had so often hung over me in sickness and trouble?—about a trumpery dress, too?—but after so protracted a cohabitation with a sound reasoner like myself, F. should have been a better logician. Well, I’ll keep my temper. I had not calculated though on the look of the balzerine.

I do not—I most positively declare—pay more attention to feminine drapery than beseems a man and a philosopher; but still I have eyes in my head. Of all the hideous, nasty, worstedy things that I ever saw, commend me to a striped balzerine, which the young Hierophant in the white neck-cloth at L. & A.’s displayed to my disgusted vision upon the afternoon in question. It was just fit for a governess endimanchée, or for any unhappy lady who is compelled by hard fate to wear, not what she would, but what she must. Flora tested it slightly between her finger and thumb, and still casting a last fond look at the mousseline-de-soie, told the shopman that that was the article upon which she had fixed. She informed me at the same time, with a kind of made-up smile (she was well aware that I could not make a scene before the shopman) that we would drive home by the Burlington Arcade, where she would purchase a “fancy straw” with green ribbon,