while
at young cousin Harry, whose own blush would have become any young
woman, and you might have thought that she possibly intended to outstay
her aunt; but that Baroness, seated in her arm-chair, her crooked
tortoiseshell stick in her hand, pointed the servants imperiously to
their duty; rated one and the other soundly: Tom for having a darn in
his stocking; John for having greased his locks too profusely out of the
candle-box; and so forth--keeping a stern domination over them. Another
remark concerning poor Jeames of a hundred years ago: Jeames slept two
in a bed, four in a room, and that room a cellar very likely, and he
washed in a trough such as you would hardly see anywhere in London now
out of the barracks of her Majesty's Foot Guards.

If Maria hoped a present interview, her fond heart was disappointed.
"Where are you going to dine, Harry?" asks Madame de Bernstein. "My
niece Maria and I shall have a chicken in the little parlour--I think
you should go to the best ordinary. There is one at the White Horse
at three, we shall hear his bell in a minute or two. And you will
understand, sir, that you ought not to spare expense, but behave like
Princess Pocahontas's son. Your trunks have been taken over to the
lodging I have engaged for you. It is not good for a lad to be always
hanging about the aprons of two old women. Is it, Maria?"

"No," says her ladyship, dropping her meek eyes; whilst the other lady's
glared in triumph. I think Andromeda had been a good deal exposed to the
Dragon in the course of the last five or six days: and if Perseus
had cut the latter's cruel head off he would have committed not
unjustifiable monstricide. But he did not bare sword or shield; he only
looked mechanically at the lacqueys in tawny and blue as they creaked
about the room.

"And there are good mercers and tailors from London always here to wait
on the company at the Wells. You had better see them, my dear, for your
suit is not of the very last fashion--a little lace----"

"I can't go out of mourning, ma'am," said the young man, looking down at
his sables.

"Ho, sir," cried the lady, rustling up from her chair and rising on her
cane, "wear black for your brother till you are as old as Methuselah,
if you like. I am sure I don't want to prevent you. I only want you to
dress, and to do like other people, and make a figure worthy of your
name."

"Madam," said Mr. Warrington with great state, "I have not done anything
to d