We were very anxious to look about us a little; but aunt Martha had been told that Falmouth was such a wicked town that, for four days, we had kept our room.
The fifth, finding it impossible to procure any single thing to eat, good or bad, owing to the arrival of another vessel from the Peninsula, we were absolutely forced out of our delicate alarms, and resolved to go out and purchase a cold tongue and some biscuits. However, we first took a long country walk, and enjoyed such magnificent scenery as astonished even my aunt Martha, who declared that there was a boldness and grandeur about the views in Cornwall, which far exceeded anything she had seen in Devonshire.
As we entered the inn after filling our reticules with eatables, we stepped back while the consul or ambassador, I forget which, who ate up all our dinner and was the chief cause of such a terrible famine in the inn, stepped into his gay carriage. I thought I had seen his face, but I really could not recollect where. He appeared to recognise me too, by the manner he looked at me. We mounted up into our dismal room very much out of spirits, having ascertained that the wind was exactly in the same unlucky quarter.
The next day, the chamber-maid brought me a polite note from the consul to request the favour of our company to dinner, as often as we could make it convenient, sans cérémonie. He had often had the pleasure of seeing me in London, or he should not have taken the liberty, which he had the less scruple in doing having been led to understand we were so very badly attended on.
"Well! this is something like!" said my aunt Martha, bridling; for I forgot to inform my readers that my aunt Martha was still on the right side of fifty, and, though her countenance had never, even in her youngest days, possessed any other attraction than an expression of extreme good-nature and animation, still that was something, and then her habit, which was composed of curiously fine cloth, had now been altered into as becoming a form as possible. On the whole, my aunt Martha, while she admitted I must have been the principal attraction, really did hope she had stood for something in this invitation. In short, she was in such high spirits that, in the warmth of her heart, she insisted on offering the contents of our reticules to my femme de chambre.
"How I regret not having seen something of life a little sooner," said aunt Martha, as she stood before the glass settling her ruff. "I presume we shall meet those two secretaries at dinner to-day. One of them was remarkably handsome, I thought. Of course, they will excuse our travelling dresses. They must know your trunks are all on board. I should like, notwithstanding, to purchase a small red rose for this cap: it would set it off, and look somewhat more dressy for the evening, you know. As for you, they will be in love with you any how. That's the advantage of being handsome. No matter then what one wears."
The consul's servant now entered the room in a gay livery, with his master's compliments, and a request to know if he was to expect the honour of our company at dinner.
"You will present our compliments, and say we propose doing ourselves that pleasure," I answered, and the servant left the room.
"The honour of our company," repeated aunt Martha, in a kind of ecstasy. "How very polite and condescending is this consul!"