NELLIE AT THE SODGERIES.
(Another Legend of the Royal Military Exhibition.)
The Lady once more left her frame in the Club Morning Room.
"So I was wrong," she murmured, as she wended her way towards the now familiar spot. "Poor Nellie, after all, was not forgotten. I am glad of it,—very glad indeed!"
And the flesh tints of Sir Peter Lely's paint-brush brightened, as a smile played across the canvas features.
"I' faith! the Military gentlemen are gallants, one and all! To be sure! Then how would it be possible that the foundress of a hospital should be overlooked? And one as comely as myself!"
So, well pleased, she journeyed on. As she reached the river, there was quite a crowd,—people were coming by rail, and boat, and omnibus. It was quite like the olden days of the Exhibitions at South Kensington. She passed through the turnstiles, and then found the cause of the excitement. There were all sorts of good things. A gallery full of pictures, and relics of battles ancient and modern, a museum of industrial work, a collection of everything interesting to a soldier. In the grounds were balloons, and fireworks, assaults at arms, and the best military bands. At length the Lady from the frame in the Club Morning Room stood before a portrait showing a good-natured face and a comely presence.
"And so there I am! And in my hands a model of the Hospital hard-by! 'Gad zooks!' as poor dear Rowley used to say, I have no cause for complaint! I thank those kind hearts who can find good in everything,—even in poor Nellie!"
And, thoroughly satisfied at the treatment she had received at the Sodgeries, Mistress Nell Gwynne returned to her haunt in the Club Morning Room.
A Glee Quartette.—Welcome to the Meister Glee Singers. Mr. Saxon, in spite of his name, is by no means brutal, though he might be pardoned for being so when he sees his colleague Mr. Saxton suiting everybody to a T. Mr. Hast has just as much speed as is necessary, and the fourth gentleman should be neither angry Norcross, since he always sings in tune. 'Tis a mad world, my Meisters, but, mad or not, we shall always be glad to hear your glees.
At the Dentist's.—"It won't hurt you in the least, and it will be out before you know where you are;" i.e., "You will suffer in the one minute and thirty-nine seconds I am tugging at your jaw, all the concentrated agony of forty-eight continuous hours of wrenching your crushed and tortured body off your staring and staggered head."