[…]; and so warmly did he share the partiality of Lady Mary and Lady Jemima for the gentle recluse, whom he persisted in calling “la belle au bois dormant,” that, when informed that though the funeral baked meats of the late Earl were not to furnish forth the marriage-table of his successor, the bombazine of the two noble spinsters was, in a decent time, to give place to bridesmaiden white, he was unable to resist a mild “hurrah!”