The apartment was not much behind that at the village inn at Hiltonbury.
In fact, it had gay curtains and a grand figured blind, but the door at
the Charlecote Arms had no such independent habits of opening, the carpet
would have been whole, and the chairs would not have creaked beneath
Lucy's grasshopper weight; when down she sat in doleful resignation,
having undressed her cousin, sent her _chaussure_ to dry, and dismissed
the car, with a sense of bidding farewell to the civilized world, and
entering a desert island, devoid of the zest of Robinson Crusoe.

What an endless evening it was, and how the ladies detested each other!
There lay Horatia, not hurt enough for alarm, but quite cross enough to
silence pity, suffering at every move, and sore at Cilly's want of
compassion; and here sat Lucilla, thoroughly disgusted with her cousin,
her situation, and her expedition. Believing the strain a trifle, she
not unjustly despised the want of resolution that had shrunk from so
expedient an exertion as the journey, and felt injured by the selfish
want of consideration that had condemned her to this awkward position in
this forlorn little inn, without even the few toilette necessaries that
they had with them at Dublin, and with no place to sit in, for the
sitting-room below stairs served as a coffee-room, where sundry male
tourists were imbibing whiskey, the fumes of which ascended to the young
ladies above, long before they could obtain their own meal.

The chops were curiosities; and as to the tea, the grounds, apparently
the peat of the valley, filled up nearly an eighth of the cup, causing
Lucilla in lugubrious mirth to talk of 'That lake whose gloomy tea, ne'er
saw Hyson nor Bohea,' when Rashe fretfully retorted, 'It is very unkind
in you to grumble at everything, when you know I can't help it!'

'I was not grumbling, I only wanted to enliven you.'

'Queer enlivenment!'

Nor did Lucilla's attempts at body curing succeed better. Her rubbing
only evoked screeches, and her advice was scornfully rejected. Horatia
was a determined homoeopath, and sighed for the globules in her wandering
box, and as whiskey and tobacco both became increasingly fragrant,
averred again and again that nothing should induce her to stay here
another night.

Nothing? Lucilla found her in the morning in all the aches and flushes
of a feverish cold, her sprain severely painful, her eyes swollen, her
throat so sore, that in alarm Cilly beso