"He'll have to put up with calf's head, that he will," said Mrs.
Goodenough, solemnly. "If I'd ha' got my usual health I'd copy out
a receipt of my grandmother's for a rolled calf's head, and send it
to Mrs. Gibson--the doctor has been very kind to me all through this
illness--I wish my daughter in Combermere would send me some autumn
chickens--I'd pass 'em on to the doctor, that I would; but she's been
a-killing of 'em all, and a-sending of them to me, and the last she
sent she wrote me word was the last."
"I wonder if they'll give a party for him!" suggested Miss Phoebe.
"I should like to see a Queen's counsel for once in my life. I have
seen javelin-men, but that's the greatest thing in the legal line I
ever came across."
"They'll ask Mr. Ashton, of course," said Miss Browning. "The three
black graces, Law, Physic, and Divinity, as the song calls them.
Whenever there's a second course, there's always the clergyman of the
parish invited in any family of gentility."
"I wonder if he's married!" said Mrs. Goodenough. Miss Phoebe had
been feeling the same wonder, but had not thought it maidenly to
express it, even to her sister, who was the source of knowledge,
having met Mrs. Gibson in the street on her way to Mrs. Goodenough's.
"Yes, he's married, and must have several children, for Mrs. Gibson
said that Cynthia Kirkpatrick had paid them a visit in London, to
have lessons with her cousins. And she said that his wife was a most
accomplished woman, and of good family, though she brought him no
fortune."
"It's a very creditable connection, I'm sure; it's only a wonder
to me as how we've heard so little talk of it before," said Mrs.
Goodenough. "At the first look of the thing, I shouldn't ha' thought
Mrs. Gibson was one to hide away her fine relations under a bushel;
indeed, for that matter, we're all of us fond o' turning the best
breadth o' the gown to the front. I remember, speaking o' breadths,
how I've undone my skirts many a time and oft to put a stain or a
grease-spot next to poor Mr. Goodenough. He'd a soft kind of heart
when first we was married, and he said, says he, 'Patty, link thy
right arm into my left one, then thou'lt be nearer to my heart;' and
so we kept up the habit, when, poor man, he'd a deal more to think on
than romancing on which side his heart lay; so, as I said, I always
put my damaged breadths on the right hand, and when we walked arm in
arm, as we always did, no one was never the wiser."