It was very good-natured of her. I made no more resistance, but alighted as quickly as my infirmities would permit, and entered the house just as the rain became a violent shower.
I was turning round to speak to the boy, when I saw him drive off, at a good deal quicker pace than he drove me; and Mrs. Ringwood said, laughing, “I told him to come for you when the shower was over; otherwise, the chair would have been quite wet, and unfit for your use.”
So I followed her into the parlour, where she had put the baby down on a sofa, in order that she might run out to me.
“It was very lucky,” said she, “that I was looking over the blind.”
My heart smote me for having called her, even to myself, idle; and I thanked her very gratefully for her kindness. She answered with a smile, and then left me for a moment or two alone with the baby. It was a long while since I had been alone with a baby; I looked at it with interest, and amused myself by making it smile.
A casual glance round the room disappointed my expectations of its comforts and capabilities. It was smaller than I should have supposed it, and inelegantly contrived. No fitting up could have concealed this; but the fitting up was not very good. The carpet was showy and shabby, and did not harmonize with the paper. The room wanted papering and painting; but the window-curtains were conspicuously new, and made the rest of the furniture look still more worn. On the table lay Punch and the Athenæum, and a smart cap in the process of making.
Mrs. Ringwood came back, looking rather discomfited. “Dear me,” said she, “I can’t find my keys—Oh, here they are!” And carrying them off, and her cap at the same time, she presently returned with a glass of wine and a biscuit, saying, “You really must take this.”
In vain I assured her I was a water-drinker; I saw I should hurt her if I declined, and therefore took the glass, and put it to my lips, though I knew it would do me no good.
“I don’t know what I should do without a glass of wine sometimes,” said she. “I hope baby has not been troublesome.”
“O no! What a nice little fellow he is! How old is he?”