Vanity Fair - Page 3/573

While the present century was in its teens, and on one sunshiny morning

in June, there drove up to the great iron gate of Miss Pinkerton's

academy for young ladies, on Chiswick Mall, a large family coach, with

two fat horses in blazing harness, driven by a fat coachman in a

three-cornered hat and wig, at the rate of four miles an hour. A black

servant, who reposed on the box beside the fat coachman, uncurled his

bandy legs as soon as the equipage drew up opposite Miss Pinkerton's

shining brass plate, and as he pulled the bell at least a score of

young heads were seen peering out of the narrow windows of the stately

old brick house. Nay, the acute observer might have recognized the

little red nose of good-natured Miss Jemima Pinkerton herself, rising

over some geranium pots in the window of that lady's own drawing-room.

"It is Mrs. Sedley's coach, sister," said Miss Jemima. "Sambo, the

black servant, has just rung the bell; and the coachman has a new red

waistcoat."

"Have you completed all the necessary preparations incident to Miss

Sedley's departure, Miss Jemima?" asked Miss Pinkerton herself, that

majestic lady; the Semiramis of Hammersmith, the friend of Doctor

Johnson, the correspondent of Mrs. Chapone herself.

"The girls were up at four this morning, packing her trunks, sister,"

replied Miss Jemima; "we have made her a bow-pot."

"Say a bouquet, sister Jemima, 'tis more genteel."

"Well, a booky as big almost as a haystack; I have put up two bottles

of the gillyflower water for Mrs. Sedley, and the receipt for making

it, in Amelia's box."

"And I trust, Miss Jemima, you have made a copy of Miss Sedley's

account. This is it, is it? Very good--ninety-three pounds, four

shillings. Be kind enough to address it to John Sedley, Esquire, and

to seal this billet which I have written to his lady."

In Miss Jemima's eyes an autograph letter of her sister, Miss

Pinkerton, was an object of as deep veneration as would have been a

letter from a sovereign. Only when her pupils quitted the

establishment, or when they were about to be married, and once, when

poor Miss Birch died of the scarlet fever, was Miss Pinkerton known to

write personally to the parents of her pupils; and it was Jemima's

opinion that if anything could console Mrs. Birch for her daughter's

loss, it would be that pious and eloquent composition in which Miss

Pinkerton announced the event.

In the present instance Miss Pinkerton's "billet" was to the following

effect:-The Mall, Chiswick, June 15, 18 MADAM,--After her six years' residence at the Mall, I have the honour

and happiness of presenting Miss Amelia Sedley to her parents, as a

young lady not unworthy to occupy a fitting position in their polished

and refined circle. Those virtues which characterize the young English

gentlewoman, those accomplishments which become her birth and station,

will not be found wanting in the amiable Miss Sedley, whose INDUSTRY

and OBEDIENCE have endeared her to her instructors, and whose

delightful sweetness of temper has charmed her AGED and her YOUTHFUL

companions.