"Then all I can say is—good gracious, what a lurch! I quite thought we were over!—all I can say is that it's unnatural to be so abstracted as you are. We're getting close to Eswar—whatever they call it. If you look round you will see the walls and towers."
Edna adapted her pince-nez and turned perfunctorily for a moment. "Quite quaint!" she said, and resumed her reading.
"Picturesque, I should call it," corrected her mother. "Sidney, doesn't it put you in mind of dear lovely Lucerne?"
"Very much so, my love," he replied, "or—er—Venice" (neither of which cities, as a matter of fact, did Eswareinmal resemble in the least). "Hullo! what are we stopping for now, eh?"
It seemed they had arrived at the principal gates of the Capital, where the Burgomaster and other civic dignitaries were assembled to welcome and to do them homage, which they did with every sign of respect and loyalty. As Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson felt unequal to the efforts of responding, that duty devolved on her husband, who presented himself at the window of the coach, and made what the reporters, had any been present, would no doubt have described as "a few gracious and appropriate remarks."
"You needn't have said that about 'doing our best to give satisfaction,' Sidney!" complained his wife after the coach had thundered over the drawbridge, and was lumbering under the massive archway into a narrow and crowded street, "for all the world as if we had been a butler and housekeeper applying for a situation!"
"It was a little unfortunate, perhaps, my dear," he admitted; "but it is so difficult to know what to say when one has to speak impromptu."
"It ought to be easy enough to know what not to say," she retorted. "Dear me, what hosts of people!" she went on, as her irritation merged into complacency. "And how pleased they all seem to see us! But no doubt, after a bachelor Regent, a whole Royal family—I love to see their happy smiling faces!"
"Grinning mugs would be nearer the mark, Mater," said Clarence; "never saw such a chuckle-headed lot of bumpkins in my life!"
"I will thank you to remember, Clarence," she replied, "that they are my loyal subjects, and will be yours at some time to come."