“That was the name of our place,” replied Harriet, “but I left it when I was only eleven. My trustee, Mr. Trawler, lives there now!”
“Ah! Trawler the attorney! I have no doubt he made as much out of the property as he could squeeze.”
“Do you mean that he cheated me?” asked Harriet, naïvely.
“God forbid! my dear young lady. But he was a great crony of your father’s, and a d—d sharp lawyer, and those sort of gentry generally feather their own nest pretty well, in payment of their friendship.”
“He can’t do me any harm now,” said Harriet, “for I have my property in my own hands!”
“Quite right! quite right! that is, if you’re a business woman,” rejoined the doctor. “And are you travelling all by yourself?”
Harriet was about to answer in the affirmative, when the Baroness took the words out of her mouth.
“No, Sir, she ain’t! She came over with her friend, Mademoiselle Brimont, and now she’s under my chaperonage. She’s a deal too ’andsome, ain’t she? to be travelling about the world alone, with her money-bags under her arm. My name’s the Baroness Gobelli,—this is my ’usband, Baron Gustave Gobelli, and this is my little boy, Bobby Bates—by my first ’usband, you’ll understand—and when you return to London, if you like to come and see Miss Brandt at our ’ouse—the Red ’Ouse, ’Olloway, we shall be very pleased to see you!”
“I am sure, Madame, you are infinitely kind,” replied Doctor Phillips gravely.
“Not at all! You’ll meet no end of swells there, Prince Loris of Taxelmein, and Prince Adalbert of Waxsquiemer, and ’eaps of others. But all the same we’re in trade, the Baron and I—and we’re not ashamed of it either. We make boots and shoes! Our firm is Fantaisie et Cie, of Oxford Street, and though I say it, you won’t find better boots and shoes in all London than ours. No brown paper soles, and rotten uppers! Not a bit of it! It’s all genuine stuff with us. You can take any boot out of the shop and rip it to pieces, and prove what I say! The best materials, and the best workmen, that’s our principle, and it answers. We can’t make ’em fast enough!”