Pickwick Abroad; or, The Tour in France — page 104: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

PICKWICK ABROAD. OQ] expressed her unfeigned delight at the honour he conferred upon her by ‘‘assisting’’ at her ‘‘ petite reuneon,’ and Mademoiselle Anas- tasie blushed a more graceful welcome. The visitor was then duly introduced to a couple of fat old ladies with large turbans, three cross-looking old men, each wearing a red riband at his button- hole, and four or five young girls, who stared at Mr. Tupman, and tittered amongst themselves. Mr. Tupman went through this ordeal as well as might be expected, and seated himself, when the ceremony was concluded, next to the beautiful Anastasie, whose loveliness was not a little enhanced by the exceedingly low gown and short petticoats—atrocities very unusual in France—which she wore. Mr. Tupman gazed upon her charms with the eye ot an unmitigated old libertine; and soon renewed, in a sotto voce, the same tender conversation he had held in the morning, and for which he was admirably primed by the quantity of Champagne he had ere now imbibed in the society of the systematic Mr. Hook Walker. While Mr. Tupman and Mademoiselle Anastasie de Volage were engaged in this little flirtation, which, with the politeness the French are so much renowned for, no one else appeared to notice, the black servant arranged three or four ecarté tables in becoming order, and the Marchioness, with amiable condescension, invited her guests to amuse themselves at cards. Two of the cross-looking gentlemen and the old ladies with the high turbans accordingly made up a couple ot games, and the young ladies crowded round the tables to bet their five- franc pieces, which they did ina manner at once interesting and curious to a degree. At length Mr. Tupman caught the generally pervasive spirit of speculation, and gallantly proposed a game with Mademoiselle de Volage, which, after a variety of little objections easily over-ruled, and a multitude of blushes that did high credit to the modesty of her feelings, was accepted. Whether the exhilarating effects of the wine he had drank or of the love that filled his soul, bewildered his mind; or whether he purposely, and from motives of gallantry, lost those large sums that were won by Mademoiselle de Volage at every consecutive game, has never tran- spired. It is nevertheless certain that upwards of a thousand frances, or 40/. of English money, changed proprietors that evening, and passed from the red morocco pocket-book of Mr. Tupman to the elegant green silk purse of the fair Anastasie. But who could resist those bewitching smiles—that blush of maiden modesty which tinged her cheek, when Mr. Tupman’s foot touched her’s beneath the table—or the enchanting confidence with which she suffered her foot to remain in delicious contact with his? When she smiled, a beautiful row of ivory teeth was displayed—and when she deait the cards, a diminutive hand, white as alabaster, attracted her lover’s impassioned gaze. Surely a thousand francs were not too dear a penalty to pay for enjoyment such as this! At length the cards were laid aside, and the black servant announced that supper was served in an adjoining room. ‘Thither did the whole party repair; and if, in the course of the repast, the Marchioness did become somewhat intoxicated, and display certain pugilistic predilec- tions totally at variance with her rank and prior deportment, the kindly feelings of Mr. Twpman readily found a becoming excuse in the EORMIC OOO KSn(6O) =)