Hardly had he finished speaking before the assembly began to melt; he
stood in the centre like a pole unwinding streamers, amid a confusion of
hurrying dresses, the sound and whirl and drift whereof was as that of
the autumnal strewn leaves on a wind rising in November. The troops of
ladies were off to bereave themselves of their fashionable imitation old
lace adornment, which denounced them in some sort abettors and associates
of the sanguinary loathed wretch, Mrs. Elizabeth Worcester, their
benefactress of the previous day, now hanged and dangling on the
gallows-tree.
Those ladies who wore not imitation lace or any lace in the morning, were
scarcely displeased with the beau for his exposure of them that did. The
gentlemen were confounded by his exhibition of audacious power. The two
gentlemen nighest upon violently resenting his brutality to Duchess
Susan, led her from the room in company with Chloe.
'The woman shall fear me to good purpose,' Mr. Beamish said to himself.
CHAPTER VIII
Mr.
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