row, as we generally have when I’m with the major, and summonses and counter-summonses, and all sorts of disagreeables; not that I mind that half so much as foreign cabmen, who get excited, and dance upon the pavement and make wild noises if you don’t satisfy them; and I’m sure I don’t know what would satisfy foreign cabmen.”
Mrs. Lennard took out her watch, which was a pretty little Geneva toy with an enamelled back, ornamented with the holes that had once held diamonds. An anxious and intensely studious expression came over Mrs. Lennard’s face as she looked at this watch, which was overweighted by a heap of incomprehensible charms, amongst which chaotic mass of golden frivolity, a skeleton, a watering-pot, a coffin, and a Dutch oven were distinguishable.
“It’s half-past five by me,” Mrs. Lennard said, after a profound contemplation of the Geneva, “so I should think it must be about a quarter to three.”
Eleanor took out her own watch, and settled the question. It was only half-past two.
“Then I’ve gained another quarter of an hour,” exclaimed Mrs. Lennard; “that’s the worst of pretty watches, they always will go too much, or else stop altogether. Freddy bought me my watch, and he gave me my choice as to whether he should spend the money in purple enamel and diamonds, or works, and I chose the purple enamel. But then, of course I didn’t know the diamonds would drop out directly,” Mrs. Lennard added, thoughtfully.
She drove about to half a-dozen shops, and collected more whitey-brown paper parcels, a bandbox, a bird-cage, a new carpet-bag, a dog’s collar, a packet of tea, and other incongruous merchandise, and then ordered the man to drive to the Great Northern Hotel.
“We’re staying at the Great Northern, my dear,” she said, after giving this order. “We very often stay at hotels, for Frederick thinks it’s cheaper to pay fifteen shillings a day for your rooms than to have a house, and servants’ wages, and coals and candles, and lard, and blacklead, and hearthstone, and all those little things that run away with so much money. And I should like the Great Northern very much if the corridors weren’t so long, and the waiters so stern. I always think waiters at grand hotels are stern. They seem to look at one as if they knew one was thinking of the bill, and trying to calculate whether it would be under ten pounds. But, oh, good gracious!” exclaimed Mrs. Lennard, suddenly, “what a selfish creature I am, I’ve quite forgotten all this time that of course you’ll want to go home to your mamma and papa, and tell them where you’re going, and get your boxes packed, and all that.”
Eleanor shook her head with a sad smile.
“I have no mother or father to consult,” she said; “I am an orphan.”
“Are you?” cried Mrs. Lennard; “then it must have been our destiny to meet, for I am an orphan, too. Ma died while I was a baby, and poor pa died soon after my marriage. He was disappointed in my marriage, poor dear old thing, though I’m glad to think it wasn’t that, but gout in the stomach, that killed him. But you’ll want to see your friends, Miss Villars, won’t you, before you leave London?”
“No,” Eleanor answered; “I shall write to the only friends I have. I don’t want to see anyone; I don’t want anyone to know where I am going. I left my portmanteau at an hotel in Norfolk Street, and I shall be glad if you will let me call for it.”
Mrs. Lennard gave the necessary order; the cabman drove to the hotel where Eleanor had left her portmanteau, and thence to the Great Northern, where Mrs. Lennard conducted her new companion to a very handsome apartment on the ground-floor, opening into a palatial bed-chamber, whose splendour was a good deal impaired by the circumstances that the stately Arabian bed, the massive easy-chairs, the sofa, the dressing-table, and even the washhand-stand were loaded with divers articles of male and female attire, which seemed to have been flung here and there by some harmless maniac disporting himself about the room.
In the very centre of all this disorder, upon a great black leather military travelling-case, sat a big broad-chested man of about forty, with a good-natured, sun-burnt face, a very fierce auburn moustache, and a thick stubble of crisp, wavy, auburn hair, cut close to his head, in the development of which a disciple of Mr. George Coombe would have scarcely discovered the organs that make a man either a general or a philosopher. This sunburnt, good-humoured looking gentleman had taken off his coat for the better accomplishment of his herculean labours; and, with his arms folded and his legs crossed, with an embroidered slipper balanced upon the extremity of his toes, and a meerschaum pipe in his mouth, he sat resting himself, after taking the initiatory step of dragging everything out of the drawers and wardrobe.
“Oh, you lazy Freddy!” cried Mrs. Lennard, looking in at her lord and master with a reproachful countenance, “is that all you’ve done?”
“Where’s the blue barège with the flounces to go?” roared the major in the voice of an amiable Stentor. “I couldn’t do anything till I knew that, and I’ve been waiting for you to come home. Have you got a companion?”
“Hush! yes! she’s in the next room; such a dear, and awfully pretty. If you stare at her much I shall be jealous, Freddy, for you know you are a starer, though you never will confess it. I’ve seen you, in Regent Street, when you’ve thought I’ve been looking at the bonnets,” added the lady, reproachfully.
Upon this the major got up, and, lifting his wife in his arms, gave her such a hug as a well-disposed bear might have bestowed upon the partner of his den. Major Lennard was about six feet one and a-half in the embroidered slippers, and was as strong as a gladiator in good training.
“Come and be introduced to her,” exclaimed Mrs. Lennard; and she led her husband, in his shirt-sleeves, nothing abashed, into the adjoining sitting-room.
The major’s conversational powers were not very startling. He made a few remarks about