“Georgy, my love,” remarked Mrs. Lammle aside to her dear girl, “I rely upon you not to go over to the opposition. Now, Mr. Fledgeby.”
Fascination wished to know if the colour were not called rose-colour? Yes, said Mr. Lammle; actually he knew everything; it was really rose-colour. Fascination took rose-colour to mean the colour of roses. (In this he was very warmly supported by Mr. and Mrs. Lammle.) Fascination had heard the term Queen of Flowers applied to the rose. Similarly, it might be said that the dress was the Queen of Dresses. (“Very happy, Fledgeby!” from Mr. Lammle.) Notwithstanding, Fascination’s opinion was that we all had our eyes—or at least a large majority of us—and that—and—and his farther opinion was several ands, with nothing beyond them.
“Oh, Mr. Fledgeby,” said Mrs. Lammle, “to desert me in that way! Oh, Mr. Fledgeby, to abandon my poor dear injured rose and declare for blue!”
“Victory, victory!” cried Mr. Lammle; “your dress is condemned, my dear.”
“But what,” said Mrs. Lammle, stealing her affectionate hand towards her dear girl’s, “what does Georgy say?”
“She says,” replied Mr. Lammle, interpreting for her, “that in her eyes you look well in any colour, Sophronia, and that if she had expected to be embarrassed by so pretty a compliment as she has received, she would have worn another colour herself. Though I tell her, in reply, that it would not have saved her, for whatever colour she had worn would have been Fledgeby’s colour. But what does Fledgeby say?”
“He says,” replied Mrs. Lammle, interpreting for him, and patting the back of her dear girl’s hand, as if it were Fledgeby who was patting it, “that it was no compliment, but a little natural act of homage that he