“I have just seen her,” flushing a little for some reason.
“These upper classes, they don’t stand at nothing, as you may say, when—” Erb returned, and the aunt, with the wink of a diplomatist, raised her voice. “They paid eight to the shillin’ this year it ought to’ve been seven. I said so straight, all through the hopping, I did, to Mrs. Turley.”
The doors were to open at two for the afternoon’s entertainment, and the aunt’s idea was that it were well to get there by noon, and thus ensure the best value in seats for a shilling; Rosalind gently over-ruled this, and they went first to Westminster Abbey, at which the aunt sneered, saying it was not her idea of a place of worship, and to the National Gallery, in regard to the contents of which the old lady hinted that they compared badly with a rare set of illuminated almanacks which she had at home, issued yearly by Deane, the grocer; the almanacks, it appeared, had the advantage of giving the date of jolly nigh every month you could think of. Trafalgar Square, looked on as a square, the aunt thought not much better than middling; the Embankment, in her opinion, lacked many of the attractions that she remembered once to have found at Ramsgate. But when, later, they were seated in the front row of the gallery in a small hall, and the curtain went up disclosing a crescent of black-faced men, with instrumentalists behind them, and similarly coloured gentlemen, with be-frilled shirtfronts, at either end asked riddles of the gentlemanly man at the centre, riddles of which the gentlemanly man almost alone in the Hall knew not the answer, able only to repeat the question in a sonorous manner, then Aunt Emma relinquished all attempt at criticism, and gave herself up to pure delight. “Can you tole me, Mithter Johnthon, how a woman differth from an umbrella?”
“Can I tell you,” repeated the gentlemanly man very distinctly, “how a woman differs from an umbrella?”
“Now ’ark for the answer!” whispered Aunt Emma, nudging her young companion gleefully.
“No, sir,” said the gentlemanly man, “I cannot tell you how a woman differs from an umbrella.”
“You can’t tole me how a woman differth from an umbrella? Why,” explained the corner-man, “you can shut an umbrella up!”
“How in the world they think of all these things!” said Aunt Emma exhaustedly. “Dang my old eyes if it ’ent a miracle!”
Aunt Emma wept when a thin-voiced youth sang, “Don’t neglect your mother ’cause her hair is getting grey,” became hysterical with amusement over, “I’m a gay old bachelor widow.” Rosalind found herself enjoying the enjoyment of the old lady, and when they came out into daylight, and went across the way to a noble establishment, where they had high tea, the two were on excellent terms with each other, and information regarding small scandals of Penshurst was placed freely at Rosalind’s disposal. The old lady spoke in an awed whisper when she came to the people at the Court, and arrested a slice of ham on her fork, as though sensible of the demands of etiquette when dealing with the upper classes.
“You’re not married, my dear,” said Aunt Emma, loosening the strings of her bonnet and allowing it to fall to the back of her head in an elegant way, “or else I could speak more free, as you may say, on the subject. That grandmother of hers—” The old lady pursed her lips, and glanced at her reflection in the mirrored walls with a pained shake of the head.