‘O! I have not the least objection to seeing it, I assure you, Mrs General,’ returned the other, carelessly.
‘You, madam,’ said the insinuating traveller, ‘have visited this spot before?’
‘Yes,’ returned Mrs General. ‘I have been here before. Let me commend you, my dear,’ to the former young lady, ‘to shade your face from the hot wood, after exposure to the mountain air and snow. You, too, my dear,’ to the other and younger lady, who immediately did so; while the former merely said, ‘Thank you, Mrs General, I am Perfectly comfortable, and prefer remaining as I am.’
The brother, who had left his chair to open a piano that stood in the room, and who had whistled into it and shut it up again, now came strolling back to the fire with his glass in his eye. He was dressed in the very fullest and completest travelling trim. The world seemed hardly large enough to yield him an amount of travel proportionate to his equipment.
‘These fellows are an immense time with supper,’ he drawled. ‘I wonder what they’ll give us! Has anybody any idea?’
‘Not roast man, I believe,’ replied the voice of the second gentleman of the party of three.
‘I suppose not. What d’ye mean?’ he inquired.
‘That, as you are not to be served for the general supper, perhaps you will do us the favour of not cooking yourself at the general fire,’ returned the other.
The young gentleman who was standing in an easy attitude on the hearth, cocking his glass at the company, with his back to the blaze and his coat tucked under his arms, something as if he were Of the Poultry species and were trussed for roasting, lost countenance at this reply; he seemed about to demand further explanation, when it was discovered—through all eyes turning on the speaker—that the lady with him, who was young and beautiful, had not heard what had passed through having fainted with her head upon his shoulder.
‘I think,’ said the gentleman in a subdued tone, ‘I had best carry her straight to her room. Will you call to some one to bring a light?’ addressing his companion, ‘and to show the way? In this strange rambling place I don’t know that I could find it.’