Mr Gazebee, having thus tied up all the available funds in favour of Lady Alexandrina’s seemingly expected widowhood, was himself providing the money with which the new house was to be furnished.  “You can pay me a hundred and fifty a year with four per cent. till it is liquidated,” he had said to Crosbie; and Crosbie had assented with a grunt.  Hitherto, though he had lived in London expensively, and as a man of fashion, he had never owed any one anything.  He was now to begin that career of owing.  But when a clerk in a public office marries an earl’s daughter, he cannot expect to have everything his own way.

Lady Amelia had bought the ordinary furniture,—­the beds, the stair-carpets, the washing-stands, and the kitchen things.  Gazebee had got a bargain of the dinner-table and sideboard.  But Lady Alexandrina herself was to come up with reference to the appurtenances of the drawing-room.  It was with reference to matters of costume that the countess intended to lend her assistance,—­matters of costume as to which the bill could not be sent in to Gazebee, and be paid for by him with five per cent. duly charged against the bridegroom.  The bridal trousseau must be produced by de Courcy’s means, and, therefore, it was necessary that the countess herself should come upon the scene.  “I will have no bills, d’ye hear?” snarled the earl, gnashing and snapping upon his words with one specially ugly black tooth.  “I won’t have any bills about this affair.”  And yet he made no offer of ready money.  It was very necessary under such circumstances that the countess herself should come upon the scene.  An ambiguous hint had been conveyed to Mr Gazebee, during a visit of business which he had lately made to Courcy Castle, that the milliner’s bills might as well be pinned on to those of the furniture-makers, the crockery-mongers, and the like.  The countess, putting it in her own way, had gently suggested that the fashion of the thing had changed lately, and that such an arrangement was considered to be the proper thing among people who lived really in the world.  But Gazebee was a clear-headed, honest man; and he knew the countess.  He did not think that such an arrangement could be made on the present occasion.  Whereupon the countess pushed her suggestion no further, but made up her mind that she must come up to London herself.

It was pleasant to see the Ladies Amelia and Alexandrina, as they sat within a vast emporium of carpets in Bond Street, asking questions of the four men who were waiting upon them, putting their heads together and whispering, calculating accurately as to extra twopences a yard, and occasioning as much trouble as it was possible for them to give.  It was pleasant because they managed their large hoops cleverly among the huge rolls of carpets, because they were enjoying themselves thoroughly, and taking to themselves the homage of the men as clearly their due.  But it was not so pleasant to look at Crosbie, who was fidgeting