"Oh! with my friends the Twamberleys, of your city," replied Miss Frampton. "The whole family had been at Washington, and as soon as I heard they were in Philadelphia on their return home, I sent to inquire—that is, or rather, I mean, they sent to inquire as soon as they came to town, and heard that I intended visiting Boston—they sent to inquire if I would make them happy by joining their party."
"Well," observed Mr. Brantley, "I cannot imagine how you got along with all the Twamberleys. Mr. Twamberley, besides being a clumsy, fat man, upwards of seventy years old, and lame with the gout, and nearly quite deaf, and having cataracts coming on both eyes, is always obliged to travel with his silly young wife, and the eight children of her first husband, and I should think he had enough to do in taking care of himself and them. I wonder you did not prefer availing yourself of the politeness of some of the single gentlemen you mentioned."
"Oh!" replied Miss Frampton, "any of them would have been too happy, as they politely expressed it, to have had the pleasure of waiting on me to Boston. Indeed, I knew not how to make a selection, being unwilling to offend any of them by a preference. And then again, it is always in better taste for young ladies to travel, and, indeed, to go everywhere, under the wing of a married woman. I dote upon chaperones; and by coming with this family, I had Mrs. Twamberley to matronize me. I have just parted with them all at their own door, where they were set down."
Mr. Brantley smiled when he thought of Mrs. Twamberley (who had been married to her first husband at fifteen, and was still a blooming girlish looking woman) matronizing the faded Miss Frampton, so evidently by many years her senior.
Laura Lovel, though new to the world, had sufficient good sense and penetration to perceive almost immediately, that Miss Frampton was a woman of much vanity and pretension, and that she was in the habit of talking with great exaggeration; and in a short time she more than suspected that many of her assertions were arrant falsehoods—a fact that was well known to all those numerous persons that Miss Frampton called her friends.
Tea was now brought in, and Miss Frampton took occasion to relate in what manner she had discovered that the famous silver urn of that charming family, the Sam Kettlethorps, was, in reality, only plated—that her particular favourites, the Joe Sowerbys, showed such bad taste at their great terrapin supper, as to have green hock-glasses for the champagne; and that those delightful people, the Bob Skutterbys, the first time they attempted the new style of heaters at a venison dinner, had them filled with spirits of turpentine, instead of spirits of wine.
Next morning, Miss Frampton did not appear at the breakfast-table, but had her first meal carried into her room, and Augusta breakfasted with her. Between them Laura Lovel was discussed at full length, and their conclusion was, that she had not a single good feature—that her complexion was nothing, her figure nothing, and her dress worse than nothing.
"I don't suppose," said Augusta, "that her father has given her much money to bring to town with her."
"To be sure he has not," replied Miss Frampton, "if he is only a poor country clergyman. I think it was in very bad taste for him to let her come at all."
"Well," said Augusta, "we must take her a shopping this morning, and try to get her fitted out, so as to make a decent appearance at Nahant, as we are going thither in a few days."