Page:Austen Sanditon and other miscellanea.djvu/88

House for this Lady whom she had never seen, and who had never employed her. She was not made acquainted with the others till the following day, when, being removed into Lodgings, and all the party continuing quite well, their Brother and Sister and herself were entreated to drink tea with them. They were in one of the Terrace Houses, and she found them arranged for the Evening in a small neat Drawing-room, with a beautiful view of the Sea if they had chosen it, but though it had been a very fair English Summer-day, not only was there no open window, but the Sopha and the Table, and the Establishment in general was all at the other end othe room by a brisk fire. Miss Parker, whom, remembering the three Teeth drawn in one day, Charlotte approached with a peculiar degree of respectful Compassion, was not very unlike her Sister in person or manner, though more thin and worn by Illness and Medicine, more relaxed in air, and more subdued in voice. She talked, however, the whole Evening as incessantly as Diana, and excepting that she sat with salts in her hand, took Drops two or three times from one out of the several Phials already at home on the Mantelpiece, and made a great many odd faces and contortions, Charlotte could perceive no symptoms of illness which she, in the boldness of her own good health, would not have undertaken to cure, by putting out the fire, opening the Window, and disposing of the Drops and the salts by means of one or the other. She had had considerable curiosity to see Mr. Arthur Parker; and having fancied him a very puny, delicate-looking young Man, the smallest very materially of not a robust Family, was astonished to find him quite as tall as his Brother and a great deal Stouter—Broad made and Lusty—and with no other look of an Invalid, than a sodden complexion. Diana was evidently the chief of the family; principal Mover and Actor; she had been on her Feet the whole Morning, on Mrs. Griffiths’s