To see the women expressing their liberal forgetfulness of my wifely misfortunes, and the men their amiable anxiety to encourage her husband; to hear the same set phrases repeated in every room—'So charmed to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Gray; so much obliged to dear Lady Janet for giving us this opportunity!—Julian, old man, what a beautiful creature!
I envy you; upon my honor, I envy you!'—to receive this sort of welcome, emphasized by obtrusive hand-shakings, sometimes actually by downright kissings of my wife, and then to look round and see that not one in thirty of these very people had brought their unmarried daughters to the ball, was, I honestly believe, to see civilized human nature in its basest conceivable aspect.
The New World may have its disappointments in store for us, but it cannot possibly show us any spectacle so abject as the spectacle which we witnessed last night at my aunt's ball.
"Lady Janet marked her sense of the proceeding adopted by her guests by leaving them to themselves.
Her guests remained and supped heartily notwithstanding.
They all knew by experience that there were no stale dishes and no cheap wines at Mablethorpe House.
They drank to the end of the bottle, and they ate to the last truffle in the dish.
"Mercy and I had an interview with my aunt upstairs before we left.
I felt it necessary to state plainly my resolution to leave England.
The scene that followed was so painful that I cannot prevail on myself to return to it in these pages.
My wife is reconciled to our departure; and Lady Janet accompanies us as far as Plymouth—these are the results.
No words can express my sense of relief, now that it is all settled.
The one sorrow I shall carry away with me from the shores of England will be the sorrow of parting with dear, warm-hearted Lady Janet.
At her age it is a parting for life.
"So closes my connection with my own country.
While I have Mercy by my side I face the unknown future, certain of carrying my happiness with me, go where I may.
We shall find five hundred adventurers like ourselves when we join the emigrant ship, for whom their native land has no occupation and no home.
Gentlemen of the Statistical Department, add two more to the number of social failures produced by England in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and seventy-one—Julian Gray and Mercy Merrick."