Mr. Pickwick was awakened early in the morning, by a hum of
voices and a pattering of feet, sufficient to rouse even the fat boy
from his heavy slumbers. He sat up in bed and listened. The
female servants and female visitors were running constantly to
and fro; and there were such multitudinous demands for hot
water, such repeated outcries for needles and thread, and so
many half-suppressed entreaties of 'Oh, do come and tie me,
there's a dear!' that Mr. Pickwick in his innocence began to
imagine that something dreadful must have occurred--when he
grew more awake, and remembered the wedding. The occasion
being an important one, he dressed himself with peculiar care,
and descended to the breakfast-room.
There were all the female servants in a bran new uniform of
pink muslin gowns with white bows in their caps, running about
the house in a state of excitement and agitation which it would
be impossible to describe. The old lady was dressed out in a
brocaded gown, which had not seen the light for twenty years,
saving and excepting such truant rays as had stolen through the
chinks in the box in which it had been laid by, during the whole
time.
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