"Have you been getting a new doctor for me?" I ask, excessively puzzled by their evident desire to connect me with some secret in the lodge.
"No," says the portress, "I believe in no doctors. I believe in nothing but a light tea and a broth."
("My sentiments also!" adds her husband, parenthetically.)
"But we have something to show you in the lodge," continues the portress.
(Hippolyte-senior arches his eyebrows, and says "Aha!")
"And when you feel better," proceeds my cheerful little friend, "only have the politeness to come down to us, and you will see a marvellous sight!"
Hippolyte-senior depresses his eyebrows, and says "Hush!"
"Enough," replies the portress, understanding him; "let us retire."
And they leave the room immediately, still arm-in-arm—the fondest and most mysterious married couple that I have ever set eyes on.
That day, I do not feel quite strong enough to encounter great surprises; so my visit to the lodge is deferred until the next morning. Rather to my amazement, the portress does not pay me her usual visit at my waking, on the eventful day. I descend to the lodge, wondering what this change means, and see three or four strangers assembled in the room which is bed-chamber, parlour, and porter's office, all in one. The strangers, I find, are admiring friends: they surround Hippolyte-senior, and all look one way with an expression of intense pleasure and surprise. My eyes follow the direction of theirs; and I see, above the shabby little lodge table, a resplendent new looking-glass in the brightest of frames. On either side of it, rise two blush-coloured wax tapers. Below it are three ornamental pots with blooming rose-trees in them, backed by a fanlike screen of fair white paper. This is the surprise that was in store for me; and this is also the security in which the inhabitants of the lodge have invested their last hard-earned savings. The whole thing has the effect upon my mind of an amateur High Altar; and I admire the new purchase accordingly with such serious energy of expression, that Hippolyte-senior, in the first sweetness of triumph, forgets the modesty proper to his position as proprietor of the new treasure, and apostrophises his own property as Magnifique, with a power of voice and an energy of gesticulation which I have never noticed in him before. When his enthusiasm has abated, and just as I am on the point of asking where my friend the portress is, I hear a faint little voice speaking behind the group of admiring friends: