Florence made a little grimace.
“Isn’t this girl respectable either?” she said. “Have you a written character with her too?”
“No,” Lucy answered. “But she is a perfect stranger. I cannot leave my child with her.”
“Very well, bring him along by all means. I own he is a credit to take out—not like my little monkeys—for he behaves prettily and obeys at a word. The dear old dame will be quite pleased to see him. She will say he is like the children of her youth, and that’s her highest praise. I daren’t take my girls; they would disgrace me in ten minutes.”
Lucy would have made the journey in an omnibus, but Florence called a cab. The visit involved going across London to a western district far beyond the solemn gloom of the region where Lucy had visited Dr. Ivery. The cab was not very pleasant, the presence of Hugh as a third having compelled them to take a four-wheeler, while otherwise Florence would have hired a dashing hansom.
“Such a fusty smell!” Florence cried. Then, in a few minutes more: “What a noise the windows make!” Next: “And we are crawling like snails. But it’s always the way with a ‘growler.’”
Lucy said nothing, but innocent Hugh administered a reproof.
“Are four-wheelers called ‘growlers,’ auntie, because they make people grumble?” he asked.
“Oh, you are too clever for anything, child!” said the auntie.
Hugh looked up astonished.