And it was queer to remark the change that had taken place in Mrs. Hoggarty’s character now:  for whereas she was in the country among the topping persons of the village, and quite content with a tea-party at six and a game of twopenny whist afterwards,—­in London she would never dine till seven; would have a fly from the mews to drive in the Park twice a week; cut and uncut, and ripped up and twisted over and over, all her old gowns, flounces, caps, and fallals, and kept my poor Mary from morning till night altering them to the present mode.  Mrs. Hoggarty, moreover, appeared in a new wig; and, I am sorry to say, turned out with such a pair of red cheeks as Nature never gave her, and as made all the people in Bernard Street stare, where they are not as yet used to such fashions.

Moreover, she insisted upon our establishing a servant in livery,—­a boy, that is, of about sixteen,—­who was dressed in one of the old liveries that she had brought with her from Somersetshire, decorated with new cuffs and collars, and new buttons:  on the latter were represented the united crests of the Titmarshes and Hoggartys, viz., a tomtit rampant and a hog in armour.  I thought this livery and crest-button rather absurd, I must confess; though my family is very ancient.  And heavens! what a roar of laughter was raised in the office one day, when the little servant in the big livery, with the immense cane, walked in and brought me a message from Mrs. Hoggarty of Castle Hoggarty!  Furthermore, all letters were delivered on a silver tray.  If we had had a baby, I believe Aunt would have had it down on the tray:  but there was as yet no foundation for Mr. Smithers’s insinuation upon that score, any more than for his other cowardly fabrication before narrated.  Aunt and Mary used to walk gravely up and down the New Road, with the boy following with his great gold-headed stick; but though there was all this ceremony and parade, and Aunt still talked of her acquaintances, we did not see a single person from week’s end to week’s end, and a more dismal house than ours could hardly be found in London town.

On Sundays, Mrs. Hoggarty used to go to St. Pancras Church, then just built, and as handsome as Covent Garden Theatre; and of evenings, to a meeting-house of the Anabaptists:  and that day, at least, Mary and I had to ourselves,—­for we chose to have seats at the Foundling, and heard the charming music there, and my wife used to look wistfully in the pretty children’s faces,—­and so, for the matter of that, did I. It was not, however, till a year after our marriage that she spoke in a way which shall be here passed over, but which filled both her and me with inexpressible joy.