"No money at all?"
"None; only seven shillings and three-pence in coppers."
This was the dreadful truth. Mrs. Bormalack had been paid, and the seven shillings was all that remained.
"And, oh, there is so much to see! We'd always intended to run round some day, only we were too busy with the case to find the time, and see all the shows we'd heard tell of—the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey, and the monument and Mr. Spurgeon's Tabernacle—but we never thought things were so grand as this. When we get home we will ask for a guidebook of London, and pick out all the things that are open free."
That day they drove up and down the streets, gazing at the crowds and the shops. When they got home tea was brought them in the morning-room, and his lordship, who took it for another square meal, requested the loaf to be brought, and did great things with the bread and butter—and having no footman to fear.
At half-past seven a bell rang, and presently Miss Messenger's maid came and whispered that it was the first bell, and would her ladyship go to her own room, and could she be of any help?
Lady Davenant rose at once, looking, however, much surprised. She went to her own room, followed by her husband, too much astonished to ask what the thing meant.
There was a beautiful fire in the room, which was very large and luxuriously furnished, and lit with gas burning in soft-colored glass.
"Nothing could be more delightful," said her ladyship, "and this room is a picture. But I don't understand it."
"Perhaps it's the custom," said her husband, "for the aristocracy to meditate in their bedrooms."