Mary Russell Mitford

“ Oh, dear William, send off the French gentleman and the outlandish carriage—run into the coppice and put on the shooting-dress!”
“Oh, Susan!” began William; but Susan having once summoned up courage sufficient to put her remonstrances into words, followed up the attack with an earnestness that did not admit a moment’s interruption.
“My father hates finery even more than Harebell or Hector would do. You know his country notions, dear William; and I think that latterly he has hated everything that looks Londonish and new-fangled worse than ever. We are old-fashioned people at Rutherford. ”

“ You must pardon a little nonsense in a country youth, thrown suddenly into a fine shop in the gayest part of London, and with his godfather’s legacy coming unexpectedly upon him, and making him too rich for a journeyman tradesman. ”

“ Dear father, all young men will be foolish one way or another; and you know my uncle says, that William is wonderfully steady for so young a man, and his master is so well pleased with him, that he is now foreman in his great concern. ”

“ Moreover, she felt that if the unseemly magnificence could once be thrown aside, the whiskers and mustachios cleared away, and his fine manly person reinstated in the rustic costume in which she had been accustomed to see him, her brother would then appear greatly improved in face and figure, taller, more vigorous, and with an expression of intelligence and frankness delightful to behold. But how to get quit of the finery, and the Frenchman, and the britschka? Or how reconcile her father to iniquities so far surpassing even the smell of musk? ”

“ One takes every thing for the sound of wheels when one is expecting a dear friend!—And if we can but get him to look, as he used to look, and to be what he used to be, he won’t leave us again for all the fine shops in Regent Street, or all the britschkas and droschkies in Christendom. My father is getting old now, and William ought to stay at home,” thought the affectionate sister ”