Great Britain -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
“Perhaps you 'ad better go,” continued Mr. Eglantine, joining in this
sentiment, and being, in truth, somewhat uneasy at the admiration which
his “swell friend” excited.
“I'll see you hanged first, Eggy my boy! Go I won't, until these ladies
have had their hair dressed: didn't you yourself tell me that Miss
Crump's was the most beautiful hair in Europe? And do you think that
I'll go away without seeing it? No, here I stay.”
“You naughty wicked odious provoking man!” said Miss Crump. But, at the
same time, she took off her bonnet, and placed it on one of the side
candlesticks of Mr. Eglantine's glass (it was a black-velvet bonnet,
trimmed with sham lace, and with a wreath of nasturtiums, convolvuluses,
and wallflowers within), and then said, “Give me the peignoir, Mr.
Archibald, if you please;” and Eglantine, who would do anything for her
when she called him Archibald, immediately produced that garment, and
wrapped round the delicate shoulders of the lady, who, removing a sham
gold chain which she wore on her forehead, two brass hair-combs set with
glass rubies, and the comb which kept her back hair together--removing
them, I say, and turning her great eyes towards the stranger, and giving
her head a shake, down let tumble such a flood of shining waving heavy
glossy jetty hair, as would have done Mr. Rowland's heart good to see.
It tumbled down Miss Morgiana's back, and it tumbled over her shoulders,
it tumbled over the chair on which she sat, and from the midst of it her
jolly bright-eyed rosy face beamed out with a triumphant smile, which
said, “A'n't I now the most angelic being you ever saw?”
“By Heaven! it's the most beautiful thing I ever saw!” cried Mr. Walker,
with undisguised admiration.
“ISN'T it?” said Mrs. Crump, who made her daughter's triumph her own.
“Heigho! when I acted at 'The Wells' in 1820, before that dear girl was
born, _I_ had such a head of hair as that, to a shade, sir, to a shade.
They called me Ravenswing on account of it. I lost my head of hair when
that dear child was born, and I often say to her, 'Morgiana, you came
into the world to rob your mother of her 'air.' Were you ever at 'The
Wells,' sir, in 1820? Perhaps you recollect Miss Delancy? I am that Miss
Delancy. Perhaps you recollect,--
“'Tink-a-tink, tink-a-tink,
By the light of the star,
On the blue river's brink,
I heard a guitar.
“'I heard a guitar,
On the blue waters clear,
And knew by its mu-u-sic,
That Selim was near!'
You remember that in the 'Bagdad Bells'? Fatima, Delancy; Selim,
Benlomond (his real name was Bunnion: and he failed, poor fellow, in
the public line afterwards). It was done to the tambourine, and dancing
between each verse,--
“'Tink-a-tink, tink-a-tink,
How the soft music swells,
And I hear the soft clink
Of the minaret bells!
“'Tink-a--'”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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