“Where?” asked Rose.
“Getting out of a coach,” replied Oliver, shedding tears of delight, “and going into a house. I didn’t speak to him—I couldn’t speak to him, for he didn’t see me, and I trembled so, that I was not able to go up to him. But Giles asked for me whether he lived there, and they said he did. Look here,” said Oliver, opening a scrap of paper, “here it is; here’s where he lives—I’m going there directly. Oh, dear me, dear me! what shall I do when I come to see him and hear him speak again!”
With her attention not a little distracted by these and a great many other incoherent exclamations of joy, Rose read the address, which was Craven-street, in the Strand, and very soon determined upon turning the discovery to account.
“Quick!” she said, “tell them to fetch a hackney-coach, and be ready to go with me. I will take you there directly, without a minute’s loss of time. I will only tell my aunt that we are going out for an hour, and be ready as soon as you are.”
Oliver needed no prompting to despatch, and in little more than five minutes they were on their way to Craven-street. When they arrived there, Rose left Oliver in the coach under pretence of preparing the old gentleman to receive him, and sending up her card by the servant, requested to see Mr. Brownlow on very pressing business. The servant soon returned to beg that she would walk up stairs, and, following him into an upper room, Miss Maylie was presented to an elderly gentleman of benevolent appearance, in a bottle-green coat; at no great distance from whom was seated another old gentleman, in nankeen breeches and gaiters, who did not look particularly benevolent, and who was sitting with his hands clasped on the top of a thick stick, and his chin propped thereupon.
“Dear me,” said the gentleman, in the bottle-green coat, hastily rising with great politeness, “I beg your pardon, young lady—I imagined it was some importunate person who—I beg you will excuse me. Be seated, pray.”
“Mr. Brownlow, I believe, sir?” said Rose, glancing from the other gentleman to the one who had spoken.