"Where to?" repeated his aunts in undisguised astonishment. They had never thought of any thing but of being taken home at once by their boy.
"You see," Ascott said, in a little confusion, "you wouldn't be comfortable with me. A young fellow's lodgings are not like a house of one's own, and, besides—"
"Besides, when a young fellow is ashamed of his old aunts, he can easily find reasons."
"Hush, Selina!" interposed Miss Leaf. "My dear boy, your old aunts would never let you inconvenience yourself for them. Take us to an inn for the night, and to morrow we will find lodgings for ourselves."
Ascott looked greatly relieved.
"And you are not vexed with me, Aunt Johanna?" said he, with something of his old childish tone of compunction, as he saw—he could not help seeing—the utter weariness which Johanna tried so hard to hide.
"No, my dear, not vexed. Only I wish we had known this a little sooner that we might have made arrangements. Now, where shall we go?"
Ascott mentioned a dozen hotels, but they found he only knew them by name. At last Miss Leaf remembered one, which her father used to go to, on his frequent journeys to London, and whence, indeed, he had been brought home to die. And though all the recollections about it were sad enough, still it felt less strange than the rest, in this dreariness of London. So she proposed going to the "Old Bell," Holborn.
"A capital place!" exclaimed Ascott, eagerly. "And I'll take and settle you there: and we'll order supper, and make a jolly night of it. All right. Drive on, cabby."
He jumped on the box, and then looked in mischievously, flourishing his lit cigar and shaking his long hair—his Aunt Selina's two great abominations—right in her indignant face: but withal looking so merry and good tempered that she shortly softened into a smile.