"Such a long cold journey!" the anxious mother exclaimed, and went on winding up the two children in woollen stuffs, as if they had been royal mummies. She pushed little papers of sandwiches into their pockets—sandwiches that would hardly be improved by the squeezing and sitting upon they must need undergo in the transit.
When this was done, and the children ready, she looked into the painting-room with a melancholy air.
"Think of all the furniture, Austin," she exclaimed; "the cabinets and things!"
"Yes; there's a considerable amount of money wasted there, Bess; for I don't suppose we shall ever see the things again, but there's a good many of them not paid for. There's comfort in that reflection."
"You take everything go lightly," she said with a hopeless sigh.
"There's nothing between that and the Morgue, my dear. You'd scarcely like to see me framed and glazed there, I think."
"O, Austin!"
"Precisely. So let me take things lightly, while I can. Now, Bess, the time is up. Good-bye, George."
"I'll come downstairs with you," said Mr. Fairfax, still in a somewhat dreamy state. He had put Austin's letter into his pocket, and was standing at a window looking down into the street, which had about as much life or traffic for a man to stare at as some of the lateral streets in the Bloomsbury district—Caroline-place, for instance, or Keppel-street.
There was a great struggling and bumping of porters and coachman on the stairs, with a good deal more exclamation than would have proceeded from stalwart Englishmen under the same circumstances; and then Austin went down to the coach with his wife and children, followed by George Fairfax. The painter happened not to be in debt to his landlord—a gentleman who gave his tenants small grace at any time; so there was no difficulty about the departure.