This letter preceded her arrival by a few hours. It was put into his hand
at the same time with a note from Mrs. Woffington, telling him she should
be at a rehearsal at Covent Garden. Thinking his wife's letter would
keep, he threw it on one side into a sort of a tray; and, after a hurried
breakfast, went out of his house to the theater. He returned, as we are
aware, with Mrs. Woffington; and also, at her request, with Mr. Cibber,
for whom they had called on their way. He had forgotten his wife's
letter, and was entirely occupied with his guests.
Sir Charles Pomander joined them, and found Mr. Colander, the head
domestic of the London establishment, cutting with a pair of scissors
every flower Mrs. Woffington fancied, that lady having a passion for
flowers.
Colander, during his temporary absence from the interior, had appointed
James Burdock to keep the house, and receive the two remaining guests,
should they arrive.
This James Burdock was a faithful old country servant, who had come up
with Mr. Vane, but left his heart at Willoughby. James Burdock had for
some time been ruminating, and his conclusion was, that his mistress,
Miss Mabel (as by force of habit he called her), was not treated as she
deserved.
Burdock had been imported into Mr. Vane's family by Mabel; he had carried
her in his arms when she was a child; he had held her upon a donkey when
she was a little girl; and when she became a woman, it was he who taught
her to stand close to her horse, and give him her foot and spring while
he lifted her steadily but strongly into her saddle, and, when there, it
was he who had instructed her that a horse was not a machine, that
galloping tires it in time, and that galloping it on the hard road
hammers it to pieces.
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