"Two trunks. Those! Valise, handbag, rugs, and umbrellas." It was the younger man who was addressing the porter.
"Oh, Peter!" cried the oldest lady, "have you my parrysol?--and my book?--and my scent-bottle?--and my spectacle-case? Where can they all be?"
"You've just left them behind you, mother, as usual. You would have left yourself, I do believe, if I had not been at your elbow."
"What am I to do for want of my parrysol? Between the hot sun and the sea air, every bit of colour will be eaten out of my blue ribbons, and my face just brandered like a raw beef-steak. I wonder if the little things can have gotten into my pockets!" And so saying, she stepped forth upon the gravel, where elbow-room was free, shook out her skirts, and proceeded to dive down deep into apertures she wot of in all parts of her circumference.
"What's this?" she cried, sinking over the elbow into a pocket on the far-off side. "What can it be?" And the eyes and eyeglasses in the galleries were turned in her direction; while Peter, half wroth and half amused, stood waiting the end of her search.
"It's terrible hard to grip. But there! Now! I've cornered it at last. Can it be livin', I wonder? The way it runs about! And I canna just lay finger on it."
"A mouse, mother, is it?" He was growing cross and sarcastic under the observation of the loungers. "Out with it! Here's a terrier ready to snap it up."
"Peter Wilkie, hold your peace! Would ye make fun of your own mother, and all thae impident Yankees looking on? Think shame! Hey! here it is at last, the bothersome thing!" And out it came, proving to be only a large-sized peppermint-drop.
"Toot! that's not what I was looking for. Here, my dear!" and without more ado she popped it into the open mouth of a small boy who stood by gaping at her in her search, to his complete confusion and the increased diversion of the gallery.
"See there, Peter! If that's no' the parrysol after all, tied up with the umbrellies! Just where it should be! And me hunting for it everywhere! I wonder you didn't see it! And here's the specs and the scent-bottle all the time in the ridicule at my side! Wonders will never cease. As for the book, it'll turn up ere I want it; and if anybody took it, they'll be little made up, for it's just Beattie's Lectures on the Ten Commandments, and very hard upon the sin of stealing. And, Peter, be sure and make the landlord give us rooms upon the first floor. I can-not be climbing stairs--it brings on the palpitations."