"Eh!" said the passenger, "draw up the window? You have got your own window; this is mine. Oxygen, young lady," he added solemnly, "oxygen is the breath of life. Cott, child!" he continued with suppressed choler, and a Welsh pronunciation, "Cott! let us breathe and live."
Helen was frightened, and recoiled.
Her father, who had not heard, or had not heeded, this colloquy, retreated into the corner, put up the collar of his coat, and coughed again.
"It is cold, my dear," said he, languidly, to Helen.
The passenger caught the word, and replied indignantly, but as if soliloquizing,—
"Cold-ugh! I do believe the English are the stuffiest people! Look at their four-post beds—all the curtains drawn, shutters closed, board before the chimney—not a house with a ventilator! Cold-ugh!"
The window next Mr. Digby did not fit well into its frame. "There is a sad draught," said the invalid.
Helen instantly occupied herself in stopping up the chinks of the window with her handkerchief. Mr. Digby glanced ruefully at the other window. The look, which was very eloquent, aroused yet more the traveller's spleen.
"Pleasant!" said he. "Cott! I suppose you will ask me to go outside next! But people who travel in a coach should know the law of a coach. I don't interfere with your window; you have no business to interfere with mine."
"Sir, I did not speak," said Mr. Digby, meekly.