"No," said Kate, "I am afraid he would not mind me much. I dare say, he will not charge more than he ought."
Master Pem's usual state of amazement seemed to receive a slight addition at these words, and as he followed Miss Vernon into the vehicle, a keen ear might have overheard a muttered "my eye!"
The noise of the streets was a good excuse for silence. Kate gazed through the windows, recognising the various localities which she faintly remembered from her short visit there, partly from Egerton's anathematising descriptions, while Pem. gazed, with unremitting assiduity and still surprised, at her.
"Well, here we are, and I expect I am ready for my tea. You were so late, I'm regularly cold waiting for you," and he blew his nose audibly—a perpetual cold in the head characterised this specimen of young Carrington.
The door was opened by a melancholy-looking woman, who made no offer to assist the cabman in removing the trunks, &c., from the vehicle.
"There—I told you," said Pem., in triumph, as Jehu demanded four and sixpence, and sixpence for the luggage; but Miss Vernon hastily paid him, and entered the house, anxious to see the kind, gentle old lady who wanted a daughter's companionship.
"Come in, do, and shut that door," cried a hard, shrill voice from some inner sanctum. "The wind is going right through my head."
"This way, mem," said the melancholy female, and Kate entered a small and very hot front parlor. A tall, large, slightly-bent old woman, with a face as hard as her voice, was standing, her hands crossed behind her back, on the hearth-rug. The broad expanse of her countenance was spanned by a pair of capacious spectacles, depressed towards the left eye, as if to give her spying propensities all the advantages of double and single vision.
"Miss Vernon. How do you do? how late you be," said she, giving Kate a cold, stiff hand, guiltless of closing on the fair soft fingers which took it.
"Yes; the train was very often delayed," replied Kate, letting go, with a sensation of repugnance, the unrelaxed collection of bone and sinews proffered to her, and gazing with surprise at the huge cap, which looked large enough for the mother of Anak's sons, though not at all disproportioned to the head it covered; the old lady was richly and substantially dressed, and had the unmistakeable air of well-lined pockets.