some persons
said Mistress Clarissa had staggered and was about to swoon; others,
that the vulgar fellow of a painter had behaved like a brute, pulled her
to his side as she was marching past him, and accused her of perjury
before the whole ball-room. Bold men were apt at that time to seize
aggravating women (especially if they were the wives of their bosoms) by
the hairs of their heads, so that a trifling rudeness was little thought
of. The county member, however, pricked up his long ears, flushed,
fiercely stamped to the particular corner, and had a constable in his
eye to arrest the beggarly offender; but before he could get at the
disputants, he had the mortification to see them retreat amicably into a
side room, and the next thing announced to him was, that Mistress
Clarissa had evanished home, before anybody could get rightly at the
bottom of the mystery.

Very fortunately, the county member ascertained the following day,
before he had compromised his pride another hair's-breadth, that the
fickle damsel had accepted the painter's escort the previous evening,
and had admitted the painter at an incredibly early hour the subsequent
morning. After such indiscretion, the great man would have nothing more
to say to Mistress Clarissa, but departed in great dudgeon, and would
never so much as set his foot within Redwater again; not even at the
following election.

Uncle Barnet was forced to come round and acknowledge, with a very bad
grace, that legislation in heiresses' marriages--in any marriage--is out
of the question. No man knew how a marriage would turn out; you might as
well pledge yourself for the weather next morning; certainly there were
signs for the wise; but were weather almanacs deceptive institutions or
were they not? The innocent old theory of marriages being made in heaven
was the best. Clary was not such a mighty catch after all: a six
thousand pounds' fortune was not inexhaustible, and the county member
might never have come the length of asking its owner's price. People did
talk of a foolish engagement in his youth to one of his yeomen's
daughters, and of a wealthy old aunt who ruled the roast; though her
well-grown nephew, not being returned for a rotten borough, voted with
dignity for so many thousands of his fellow-subjects in the Commons.
Uncle Barnet, with a peculiarly wry face, did reluctantly what he did
not often advise his clients to do, unless in desperate
circumstances--he compromised.