Let us return, however, to the solitary Smirke.
Smirke had one confidante for his passion--that most injudicious woman,
Madame Fribsby. How she became Madame Fribsby, nobody knows: she had left
Clavering to go to a milliner's in London as Miss Fribsby--she pretended
that she had got the rank in Paris during her residence in that city. But
how could the French king, were he ever so much disposed, give her any
such title? We shall not inquire into this mystery, however. Suffice to
say, she went away from home a bouncing young lass; she returned a rather
elderly character, with a Madonna front and a melancholy countenance--
bought the late Mrs. Harbottle's business for a song--took her elderly
mother to live with her; was very good to the poor, was constant at
church, and had the best of characters. But there was no one in all
Clavering, not Mrs. Portman herself, who read so many novels as Madame
Fribsby. She had plenty of time for this amusement, for, in truth, very
few people besides the folks at the Rectory and Fairoaks employed her;
and by a perpetual perusal of such works (which were by no means so moral
or edifying in the days of which we write, as they are at present) she
had got to be so absurdly sentimental, that in her eyes life was nothing
but an immense love-match; and she never could see two people together,
but she fancied they were dying for one another.
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