ile tongue.

"Oh, Mrs.--," said Herbert. "I beg your pardon, but might I ask your
name?"

"No offence, sir; none in life. My name's Whereas. Martha Whereas,
and 'as been now for five-and-twenty year. There be'ant many of the
gen'lemen about the courts here as don't know some'at of me. And I
knew some'at of them too, before they carried their wigs so grandly.
My husband, that's Whereas,--you'll all'ays find him at the little
stationer's shop outside the gate in Carey Street. You'll know him
some of these days, I'll go bail, if you're going to Mr. Die; anyways
you'll know his handwrite. Tea to your liking, sir? I all'ays gets
cream for gentlemen, sir, unless they tells me not. Milk a 'alfpenny,
sir; cream tuppence; three 'alfpence difference; hain't it, sir? So
now you can do as you pleases, and if you like bacon and heggs to
your breakfastesses you've only to say the words. But then the heggs
hain't heggs, that's the truth; and they hain't chickens, but some'at
betwixt the two."

And so she went on during the whole time that he was eating, moving
about from place to place, and putting back into the places which
she had chosen for them anything which he had chanced to move; now
dusting a bit of furniture with her apron, and then leaning on the
back of a chair while she asked him some question as to his habits
and future mode of living. She also wore a bonnet, apparently as
a customary part of her house costume, and Herbert could not help
thinking that she looked very like his Aunt Letty.

But when she had gone and taken the breakfast things with her, then
began the tedium of the day. It seemed to him as though he had no
means of commencing his life in London until he had been with Mr.
Prendergast or Mr. Die. And so new did it all feel to him, so strange
and wonderful, that he hardly dared to go out of the house by himself
and wander about the premises of the Inn. He was not absolutely a
stranger in London, for he had been elected at a club before he had
left Oxford, and had been up in town twice, staying on each occasion
some few weeks. Had he therefore been asked about the metropolis
some four months since at Castle Richmond, he would have professed
that he knew it well. Starting from Pall Mall he could have gone to
any of the central theatres, or to the Parks, or to the houses of
Parliament, or to the picture galleries in June. But now in that
dingy big square he felt himself to be absolutely a stranger; and
when