The changes are charming. The speaker has a sense of humor about the situation (doesn't feel as down on herself), and the husband is better shown to care about her.
"Referred to" doesn't encourage me to read beyond the first lines. It's stiffness could, I suppose, be defended as a match in register for the tongue-in-cheek "Royal personage," but it isn't a synonym for "said."
FWIW.
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