 correspondences with clerical gentlemen in most of our East and West
India possessions and was secretly attached to the Reverend Silas Hornblower,
who was tattooed in the South Sea Islands.
    As for the Lady Jane, on whom, as it has been said, Mr. Pitt Crawley's
affection had been placed, she was gentle, blushing, silent, and timid. In spite
of his falling away, she wept for her brother, and was quite ashamed of loving
him still. Even yet she used to send him little hurried smuggled, notes, and pop
them into the post in private. The one dreadful secret which weighed upon her
life was, that she and the old housekeeper had been to pay Southdown a furtive
visit at his chambers in the Albany, and found him - oh the naughty, dear,
abandoned wretch! - smoking a cigar, with a bottle of curaçoa before him. She
admired her sister, she adored her mother, she thought Mr. Crawley the most
delightful and accomplished of men, after Southdown, that fallen angel; and her
mamma and sister, who were ladies of the most superior sort, managed everything
for her, and regarded her with that amiable pity of which your really superior
woman always has such a share to give away. Her mamma ordered her dresses, her
books, her bonnets, and her ideas for her. She was made to take pony-riding, or
piano-exercise, or any other sort of bodily medicament, according as my Lady
Southdown saw meet; and her Ladyship would have kept her daughter in pinafores
up to her present age of six-and-twenty, but that they were thrown off when Lady
Jane was presented to Queen Charlotte.
    When these ladies first came to their house at Brighton, it was to them
alone that Mr. Crawley paid his personal visits, contenting himself by leaving a
card at his aunt's house, and making a modest inquiry of Mr. Bowls, or his
assistant-footman, with respect to the health of the invalid. When he met Miss
Briggs coming home from the library with a cargo of novels under her arm, Mr.
Crawley blushed in a manner quite unusual to him as he stepped forward and shook
Miss Crawley's companion by the hand. He introduced Miss Briggs to the lady with
whom he happened to be walking - the Lady Jane Sheepshanks - saying, »Lady Jane,
permit me to introduce to you my aunt's kindest friend and most affectionate
companion, Miss Briggs, whom you know under another title, as authoress of the
delightful Lyrics of the Heart, of
