Nevertheless, she did suffer me, upon my very instant entreaty, to lay the matter before our friends, Mrs Skipwith and Mrs Sternhold, for to decide, I looking that they should have given the case at once in my favour, but instead on’t they consented to give judgment against me. And more, they showed me, with many words and great plainness of speech, that I was an absolute barbarian for carrying it so, and that Dorothy might not by any possibility be wed before the spring, she having no wedding clothes ready. And to this I replied that wedding clothes wan’t no concernment at all to me, but only Dorothy alone, and that if she would marry me at once, I would carry her to London, and there buy her whatever she might desire. But at this they cast up their hands in horror that my Lord Brandon’s daughter should be wedded without any convenient preparation, and did beseech me almost with tears to suffer all to be duly done. And upon this I bid ’em make what preparation they should consider seemly, only to have it over speedily, and demanded of them what sum of money should buy all that was needed in as short a space as was possible, for that I would pay it at once, that they might begin straightway. But at this proposition again they did testify great dismay, assuring me that ’twas right against all decency for me to have to do with the matter, and that Dorothy’s punctilio required that she should furnish all her wedding clothes herself. And I resenting this as a thing contrary to that right of propriety[138] I had acquired in her, and further objecting that she had naught wherewith to furnish ’em, they showed me that my father had been wont always to give to Mrs Skipwith for her use and Dorothy’s the money gained by the sale of small matters within their province, as honey, poultry, and the like (such as many of our gentlewomen use to have for their own spending), and that she had now by this means a considerable sum laid by, and all this was to be spent for wedding clothes. And the end of this then was, that Dorothy and Mrs Diony rid up to town in my new coach, I waiting upon ’em, and there did choose and buy such things as seemed to them to be needed. And very merry were we during that time, though ’twere too long to tell of all that we did, or of all the sights that we saw.