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cutting, trimming, and altering them to the fashion. She had the
largest of hoops and the handsomest of furbelows, and once a month
(under my Lord Bagwig's cover) would come a letter from London
containing the newest accounts of the fashions there. Her complexion
was so brilliant that she had no call to use rouge, as was the mode
in those days. No, she left red and white, she said (and hence the
reader may imagine how the two ladies hated each other) to Madam
Brady, whose yellow complexion no plaster could alter. In a word,
she was so accomplished a beauty, that all the women in the country
took pattern by her, and the young fellows from ten miles round
would ride over to Castle Brady church to have the sight of her.
But if (like every other woman that ever I saw or read of) she was
proud of her beauty, to do her justice she was still more proud of
her son, and has said a thousand times to me that I was the
handsomest young fellow in the world. This is a matter of taste. A
man of sixty may, however, say what he was at fourteen without much
vanity, and I must say I think there was some cause for my mother's
opinion. The good soul's pleasure was to dress me; and on Sundays
and holidays I turned out in a velvet coat with a silver-hilted
sword by my side and a gold garter at my knee, as fine as any lord
in the land. My mother worked me several most splendid waistcoats,
and I had plenty of lace for my ruffles, and a fresh riband to my
hair, and as we walked to church on Sundays, even envious Mrs. Brady
was found to allow that there was not a prettier pair in the
kingdom.
Of course, too, the lady of Castle Brady used to sneer, because on
these occasions a certain Tim, who used to be called my valet,
followed me and my mother to church, carrying a huge prayer-book and
a cane, and dressed in the livery of one of our own fine footmen
from Clarges Street, which, as Tim was a bandy-shanked little
fellow, did not exactly become him. But, though poor, we were
gentlefolks, and not to be sneered out of these becoming appendages
to our rank; and so would march up the aisle to our pew with as much
state and gravity as the Lord Lieutenant's lady and son might do.
When there, my mother would give the responses and amens in a loud
dignified voice that was delightful to hear, and, besides, had a
fine loud voice for singing, which art she had perfected in London
under a fashionable teacher; and she would exercise her talent in
such a way that you would hardly hear any other voice of the little
congregation which chose to join in the psalm. In fact, my mother
had great gifts in every way, and believed herself to be one of the
most beautiful, accomplished, and meritorious persons in the world.
Often and often has she talked to me and the neighbours regarding
her own humility and piety, pointing them out in such a way that I
would defy the most obstinate to disbelieve her.
When we left Castle Brady we came to occupy a house in Brady's town,
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