I need not say I was married in Mr. Von Stiltz’s coat (the third and fourth coats, Heaven help us! in a year), and that I wore sparkling in my bosom the GREAT HOGGARTY DIAMOND.

CHAPTER IX

BRINGS BACK SAM, HIS WIFE, AUNT, AND DIAMOND, TO LONDON

We pleased ourselves during the honeymoon with forming plans for our life in London, and a pretty paradise did we build for ourselves!  Well, we were but forty years old between us; and, for my part, I never found any harm come of castle-building, but a great deal of pleasure.

Before I left London I had, to say the truth, looked round me for a proper place, befitting persons of our small income; and Gus Hoskins and I, who hunted after office-hours in couples, bad fixed on a very snug little cottage in Camden Town, where there was a garden that certain small people might play in when they came:  a horse and gig-house, if ever we kept one,—­and why not, in a few years?—­and a fine healthy air, at a reasonable distance from ’Change; all for 30_l_. a year.  I had described this little spot to Mary as enthusiastically as Sancho describes Lizias to Don Quixote; and my dear wife was delighted with the prospect of housekeeping there, vowed she would cook all the best dishes herself (especially jam-pudding, of which I confess I am very fond), and promised Gus that he should dine with us at Clematis Bower every Sunday:  only he must not smoke those horrid cigars.  As for Gus, he vowed he would have a room in the neighbourhood too, for he could not bear to go back to Bell Lane, where we two had been so happy together; and so good-natured Mary said she would ask my sister Winny to come and keep her company.  At which Hoskins blushed, and said, “Pooh! nonsense now.”

But all our hopes of a happy snug Clematis Lodge were dashed to the ground on our return from our little honeymoon excursion; when Mrs. Hoggarty informed us that she was sick of the country, and was determined to go to London with her dear nephew and niece, and keep house for them, and introduce them to her friends in the metropolis.

What could we do?  We wished her at—­Bath:  certainly not in London.  But there was no help for it; and we were obliged to bring her:  for, as my mother said, if we offended her, her fortune would go out of our family; and were we two young people not likely to want it?

So we came to town rather dismally in the carriage, posting the whole way; for the carriage must be brought, and a person of my aunt’s rank in life could not travel by the stage.  And I had to pay 14_l_. for the posters, which pretty nearly exhausted all my little hoard of cash.