"Will they not sit down?"
"No, indeed! there will not be room. Then the aisles will be filled with all sorts of people, and our dresses be liable to damage from boots and tobacco juice."
"Tobacco juice!" was she in a barbarous country! As Carry predicted, their three attendants worked their way, between the wheels and the people, to where they sat. Charley crawled under the rail, and planted himself behind them.
"I can keep my position until some pretty girl dislodges me," said he. "The denizens of these parts have not forgotten how to stare."
He might well say so. A battery of eyes was levelled upon them, wherever they looked. The tasteful dress and elegant appearance of the ladies, and their attractive suite, were subjects of special importance to the community at large. Although eclipsed in show by some present, theirs was a new constellation, and they must support observation as they could. They stood fire bravely; Ida was most unaccustomed to it, and she found so much to interest and divert her, that she became unconscious of the annoyance after a little.
"Are those seats reserved for distinguished strangers? have not we a right to them?" designating a tier in front of the speaker's stand.
"They are the anxious benches," returned Charley.
"Nonsense!"
"So I think. The brethren dissent from us. I am not quizzing. That is the name."
"The mourners—the convicted occupy them," said Carry.