So she wrote to Mrs. Hanbury Smith
explaining that her darling niece Lucinda was about to be married to Sir
Griffin Tewett, and that, as she had no child of her own, Lucinda was the
same to her as a daughter. And then, lest there might be any want of
comprehension, she expressed her own assurance that her friend would be
glad to have an opportunity of reciprocating the feelings which had been
evinced on the occasion of her own marriage. "It is no good mincing
matters nowadays," Mrs. Carbuncle would have said, had any friend pointed
out to her that she was taking strong measures in the exaction of toll.
"People have come to understand that a spade is a spade, and ?10 ?10," she
would have said. Had Mrs. Hanbury Smith not noticed the application, there
might perhaps have been an end of it, but she was silly enough to send
over from Paris a little trumpery bit of finery, bought in the Palais
Royal for ten francs. Whereupon Mrs. Carbuncle wrote the following letter:
"DEAR MRS. HANBURY SMITH: Lucinda has received your little brooch, and is
much obliged to you for thinking of her; but you must remember that when
you were married I sent you a bracelet which cost ?10.
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