“IT WAS THE BROAD WINDOW SEAT, IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE MOUNTAINS, THAT TURNED THE SCALE.”
them and their lawful share of the fire and the newspapers.
“SHE WAS AN AMERICAN LADY.”
Our most salient recollections of the rest of the evening are connected with the velvet delicacy of the lobster soup at dinner, and the tortured bashfulness of the English youth, who crept, mouse-like, into the room after the rest of the small party were seated, and raised neither his eyes nor his voice till the meal was ended. Directly he had finished, he hurried from the room and was seen no more. A lady who sat next us volunteered the information that he always acted just so, and that he spent his days, so far as anyone could guess, in slinking around the mountains. “He’s so shy,” she concluded, “that he’ll scrape a hole in his plate trying to get the last mite of butter off it rather than ask me to pass the cooler.” It appeared that she was an American lady who had come to Renvyle to inquire into the advantages of the Land League and other kindred institutions, which was perhaps why she was in the habit of noticing little things. She certainly seemed to have noticed the Englishman a good deal.