So I went with Dr. Lewis and Anne. It was late in the afternoon when we reached Worcester, close upon the dinner-hour—which was five o’clock, and looked upon as quite a fashionable hour in those days. The dinner-bell had rung, and the company had filed in to dinner when we got downstairs.
But there was not much company staying in the house. Mrs. Lake did not appear at dinner, and Miss Dinah Lake took the head of the table. It happened more often than not that Mrs. Lake was in the kitchen, superintending the dinner and seeing to the ragouts and sauces; especially upon the advent of fresh inmates, when the fare would be unusually liberal. Mrs. Lake often said she was a “born cook;” which was lucky, as she could not afford to keep first-rate servants.
Miss Dinah sat at the head of the table, in a rustling green gown and primrose satin cap. Having an income of her own she could afford to dress. (Mrs. Lake’s best gown was black silk, thin and scanty.) Next to Miss Dinah sat a fair, plump little woman, with round green eyes and a soft voice: at any rate, a soft way of speaking: who was introduced to us as Mrs. Captain Podd. She in turn introduced her daughters, Miss Podd and Miss Fanny Podd: both fair, like their mother, and with the same sort of round green eyes. A Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell completed the company; two silent people who seemed to do nothing but eat.
Dr. Lewis sat by Mrs. Captain Podd: and very pleasant and attentive the doctor found her. He was shy as well as helpless; but she talked to him freely in her low soft voice and put him altogether at his ease. My place chanced to be next to Miss Fanny Podd’s: and she began at once to put me at my ease, as her mother was putting the doctor.
“You are a stranger here, at the dinner-table,” observed Miss Fanny; “but we shall be good friends presently. People in this house soon become sociable.”
“I am glad of that.”
“I did not quite hear your name. Did you catch mine? Fanny Podd.”
“Yes. Thank you. Mine is Ludlow.”
“I suppose you never were at Worcester before?”
“Oh, I know Worcester very well indeed. I live in Worcestershire.”