Chapter 9.00: Chapter viii. — A dialogue between Mesdames Bridget and Deborah; containing more amusement, but less instruction, than the former.

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Chapter viii. — A dialogue between Mesdames Bridget and Deborah;
containing more amusement, but less instruction, than the former.
**

When Mr Allworthy had retired to his study with Jenny Jones, as hath been
seen, Mrs Bridget, with the good housekeeper, had betaken themselves to a
post next adjoining to the said study; whence, through the conveyance of a
keyhole, they sucked in at their ears the instructive lecture delivered by
Mr Allworthy, together with the answers of Jenny, and indeed every other
particular which passed in the last chapter.

This hole in her brother's study-door was indeed as well known to Mrs
Bridget, and had been as frequently applied to by her, as the famous hole
in the wall was by Thisbe of old. This served to many good purposes. For
by such means Mrs Bridget became often acquainted with her brother's
inclinations, without giving him the trouble of repeating them to her. It
is true, some inconveniences attended this intercourse, and she had
sometimes reason to cry out with Thisbe, in Shakspeare, “O, wicked,
wicked wall!” For as Mr Allworthy was a justice of peace, certain
things occurred in examinations concerning bastards, and such like, which
are apt to give great offence to the chaste ears of virgins, especially
when they approach the age of forty, as was the case of Mrs Bridget.
However, she had, on such occasions, the advantage of concealing her
blushes from the eyes of men; and _De non apparentibus, et non
existentibus eadem est ratio_—in English, “When a woman is
not seen to blush, she doth not blush at all.”

Both the good women kept strict silence during the whole scene between Mr
Allworthy and the girl; but as soon as it was ended, and that gentleman
was out of hearing, Mrs Deborah could not help exclaiming against the
clemency of her master, and especially against his suffering her to
conceal the father of the child, which she swore she would have out of her
before the sun set.

At these words Mrs Bridget discomposed her features with a smile (a thing
very unusual to her). Not that I would have my reader imagine, that this
was one of those wanton smiles which Homer would have you conceive came
from Venus, when he calls her the laughter-loving goddess; nor was it one
of those smiles which Lady Seraphina shoots from the stage-box, and which
Venus would quit her immortality to be able to equal. No, this was rather
one of those smiles which might be supposed to have come from the dimpled
cheeks of the august Tisiphone, or from one of the misses, her sisters.

With such a smile then, and with a voice sweet as the evening breeze of
Boreas in the pleasant month of November, Mrs Bridget gently reproved the
curiosity of Mrs Deborah; a vice with which it seems the latter was too
much tainted, and which the former inveighed against with great
bitterness, adding, “That, among all her faults, she thanked Heaven
her enemies could not accuse her of prying into the affairs of other
people.”

She then proceeded to commend the honour and spirit with which Jenny had
acted. She said, she could not help agreeing with her brother, that there
was some merit in the sincerity of her confession, and in her integrity to
her lover: that she had always thought her a very good girl, and doubted
not but she had been seduced by some rascal, who had been infinitely more
to blame than herself, and very probably had prevailed with her by a
promise of marriage, or some other treacherous proceeding.

This behaviour of Mrs Bridget greatly surprised Mrs Deborah; for this
well-bred woman seldom opened her lips, either to her master or his
sister, till she had first sounded their inclinations, with which her
sentiments were always consonant. Here, however, she thought she might
have launched forth with safety; and the sagacious reader will not perhaps
accuse her of want of sufficient forecast in so doing, but will rather
admire with what wonderful celerity she tacked about, when she found
herself steering a wrong course.

“Nay, madam,” said this able woman, and truly great
politician, “I must own I cannot help admiring the girl's spirit, as
well as your ladyship. And, as your ladyship says, if she was deceived by
some wicked man, the poor wretch is to be pitied. And to be sure, as your
ladyship says, the girl hath always appeared like a good, honest, plain
girl, and not vain of her face, forsooth, as some wanton husseys in the
neighbourhood are.”

“You say true, Deborah,” said Miss Bridget. “If the girl
had been one of those vain trollops, of which we have too many in the
parish, I should have condemned my brother for his lenity towards her. I
saw two farmers' daughters at church, the other day, with bare necks. I
protest they shocked me. If wenches will hang out lures for fellows, it is
no matter what they suffer. I detest such creatures; and it would be much
better for them that their faces had been seamed with the smallpox; but I
must confess, I never saw any of this wanton behaviour in poor Jenny: some
artful villain, I am convinced, hath betrayed, nay perhaps forced her; and
I pity the poor wretch with all my heart.”

Mrs Deborah approved all these sentiments, and the dialogue concluded with
a general and bitter invective against beauty, and with many compassionate
considerations for all honest plain girls who are deluded by the wicked
arts of deceitful men.