Old Sylvester, who had on at that moment an old brown coat and a frayed black ribbon for a neck-cloth, ordered Mopsey to send the two best pies in the house immediately to the negroes in the Hills. Mrs. Carrack smiled loftily, and drew from her pocket an elegant small silver vial of the pure otto of rose, and applied it to her nostrils as though something disagreeable had just struck upon the air and tainted it.
"By the way," said Mr. Tiffany Carrack, adjusting his shirt collar, "how is my little friend Miriam?"
"Melancholy!" was the only answer any one had to make.
"So I thought," pursued Mr. Carrack, rolling his eyes and heaving an infant sigh from his bosom. "Poor thing, no wonder, if she thought I was gone away so far. She shall be comforted."
Mopsey looking in at this moment, gave the summons to tea, which was answered by Mr. Tiffany Carrack's offering his arm, impressively, to his excellent mother, and leading the way to the table.
It was observed, that in his progress to the tea-table, Mr. Tiffany adopted a tottering and uncertain step, indicating a dilapidated old age, only kept together by the clothes he wore, which was altogether unintelligible to the Peabody family, seeing that Mr. Carrack was in the very prime of youth, till Mrs. Carrack remarked, with an affectionate smile of motherly pride:
"You remind me more and more every day, Tiff, of that dear delightful old Baden-Baden."
"I wish the glorious old fellow would come over to me for a short lark," rejoined Mr. Tiffany. "But he couldn't live here long; there's nothing old here."
"Who's Baden Baden?" asked Sylvester.
"Only a prince of my acquaintance on the other side of the water, and a devilish clever fellow. But he could'nt stand it here—I'm afraid—everything's so new."