“For instance, sir,” I continued, “I am quite sure my friend would have been very highly dissatisfied at seeing Miss Florentine employed in receiving all the strangers who arrive at the Blue Angel. He has very strict ideas on this subject,—perhaps too much so, but at all events, he would consider it quite improper to employ a young lady in such a manner.”
“He is perhaps very right, sir,” replied mine host. “His grandmother thought so too; and I had great difficulty in satisfying the old lady about it.”
“Indeed!”
“Yes, yes,” continued the host of the Blue Angel, “it is all well enough for people like you and Mrs Milbirn, who have plenty money, and are independent of the world, to rail against us poor folks for want of prudence; but confess now, sir, were you not very well-pleased when a pretty girl bade welcome to the Blue Angel.”
“Displeased! Certainly not, sir; it is all very well in itself, very agreeable I grant you,—but then, sir,”
“Every thing depends on first impressions in our line of business,” interrupted mine host, taking the word out of my mouth. “When a stranger gentleman comes to an inn, and finds nobody at all caring for him, or perhaps every body looking cross, why look you now, would he not rather seek his lodgings in the poorest tavern in the village so that he might meet with something like a smiling welcome? As long as my wife was young and pretty, she used to receive the company; but my daughter must now fill her shoes in that.”
“But perhaps,” said I, quite provoked at such mercenary reasoning,—“perhaps, her future husband might not altogether approve of your system?”
“When Florentine has got a husband,” said the father, with an air which almost convinced me I was in his eye for a son-in-law at the moment, “she may do as her husband pleases; but till then she must obey me.”
