“It’s a gentleman, ma’am, who wants to see you—such a nice gentleman, in a great long coat!”
“Did you show him into the drawing-room?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Show him in at once, and then you hang up the rest of the stockings. Say I will be with him in a minute, and take the pin out of my gown behind.” Then, in a severe tone, “You dirty little thing, you are not fit to speak to a visitor!” And indeed this domestic did not harmonize well with the dado.
The small servant showed George into a tiny room, the furniture and arrangement of which told more of its owner’s history than the hall had done. For it was a room which belonged to an anterior period of civilization. The carpet was of the aggressive kind, with old fashioned impossibly-colored roses. There was an inlaid round table, much too big for the room, jutting a long way out of one corner; the piano was worn and old-fashioned, the chairs were evidently relics of two or three different suits of furniture. The books were suggestive too—the “Pilgrim’s Progress,” with much gilt on the binding, odd numbers of the Sunday at Home, and the current number of the Quiver, two or three Keepsakes, some little-used volumes of miscellaneous poetry, which looked like school-prizes, et cetera. But the ornaments spoke more plainly than anything in the room—large, blue-glass vases on the mantel-piece, crochet antimacassars, each of a different pattern, over the chairs; and every ornament stood on a wool mat.
He had to wait some time; he heard Mrs. Mansfield go softly past the door and up the stairs, and the small servant follow her with hot water, as he could tell by her spilling it as she went along. Presently the door opened, and a woman of about forty, dressed in rusty black, much covered by trimmings which enhanced the shabbiness they were meant to hide, came in and apologized more than was necessary.
He stated the object of his visit as soon as he could. He had come on behalf of his mother and some other friends of Miss Lane, to find out her address.
“I could not have given it you myself before this morning,” said Mrs. Mansfield. “She has written twice to me since she left Garstone; but it was only in the letter I received to-day from her that she put any address. She is lodging in London by herself, and trying to get daily pupils.”
“Are you going to see her?” asked George.
“No, I have no time; she knows that herself, and doesn’t expect me.”