Punch (51.1866)

119

September 22, 1866. j PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

MRS. LADYBIRD’S LUGGAGE.

MY MOTHER BIDS ME BIND AN HEIR.

Air—“ My Mother bids me Bind my Hair."

My Mother bids me find an heir,

And give up Cousin Hugh,

Who came so often to the Square—

Poor cornet—Horse Guards Blue.

“ For why,” she cries, “ A younger Son,
While plainer girls win peers,

Alas ! Another Season’s done,

And still you ’re all Miss Veres.”

The Post announces he has gone
To shoot and stalk the deer;

I canter through the lanes alone,

And wish it was next year:

And as I draw the amber thread
Bis slippers to adorn,

N o novel that I ever read
Had heroine so forlorn.

PROFESSIONAL LOVE-LETTER.

From Mr. Norman Dormer, Architect and Surveyor, to Miss
Caroline Tower.

My Precious,

Pity me who must stay and fret in London, while you are
enjoying yourself at Broadstairs. How I long to be there, surveying
the ocean by your side, and tracing your dear name on the sands ! But
late and a father have placed a barrier between us. So I pace up and

down before the old house in T--Square, and look up at a certain

dormitory on the second story—in no state of elevation you may be
sure—and make plans for the future, and build castles in the air, and
try to lorget that my designs on your heart appear ridiculous to your
Papa, whose estimate of me I am aware is not in excess. For can
I lorget what he said that wet Saturday afternoon in the back draw-
^g-room, when I tendered myself to him as a son-in-law, and the

tender was not accepted ? After telling him that it was the summit,
the pinnacle of my ambition to win you as my wife, did he not answer
that he considered I ought not to aspire to your hand until the state-
ment of my pecuniary means (as he worded it) was more satisfactory,
and, meanwhile, requested me to discontinue my pointed attentions ?
Never until you bid me. Only be firm, and the difficulties now in our
way will but serve to cement us more closely together; only be true
ana I will wait patiently for that day which shall put the coping-stone
to my happiness. I build upon every word, every look, every smile I
can call to mind. You will write and assure me there is no foundation
for the report of another and more fortunate competitor, but that I
still fill the same niche in your affections I ever did ? For, Caroline,
were I to hear you were an “engaged” Tower, I could not survive
the blow. I should stab myself with my compasses in the back office.

But away with such gloomy fears. Let me picture her to myself.
How plumb she stands ! How arch she looks ! What a beam in her
eye! What a graceful curve in her neck! What an exquisitely
chiselled nose ! What a brick of a girl altogether ! I must stop in my
specification, or you will think there is something wrong in my upper
story, and not give credence to a word I say.

I have just been calling on your sister, and saw your little pet
Poppy, who talked in her pretty Farly English about “ Tant Tarry.”
Aunt Sarah was there, staying the day, looking as mediaeval as ever,
and with her hair dressed in the usual Decorated style. She hinted
that you were imperious, and that any man who married you must
make up his mind (grim joke) to fetch and Carry at your bidding.
And then you were so ambitious ! The wiseacre ! why, I will leave no
stone unturned to get on in my profession if you will only be constant.
I will be the architect of my own fortunes—your love the keystone
of my prosperity. The columns of every newspaper shall record my
success ; every Capital in Europe shall know my name. She did not
unhinge me a bit, and the shafts of her ridicule fell harmless; although,
she made an allusion to “ dumpy” men, which I knew was levelled at
me, and sneered at married life as very pretty for a time, but the
stucco soon fell off. Poor Aunt Sarah ! I left her sitting up quite
erpendicular with that everlasting work wrhich she is always herring-
oning. And now, Carry darling—oh, dear ! I am wanted about
something in our designs for the new Law Courts, and have only tim?
to sign myself, Your own, till Domesday, Norman.

I