the impression
that his sister and he were rather lonely in their rooms, while he
alluded to the facts that he and she were orphans, and with the
exception of each other had neither brother nor sister. They had looked
forward to being together, and making a home as soon as Kate left
school, and he had taken furnished lodgings at Campden Hill till he
settled down somewhere. But somehow the lodgings were not very
home-like. He should prize highly the friendship of Mrs. Jennings for
his sister. At this point the slightest gleam of a business interest
awoke in Mrs. Jennings's steel gray eyes, though she only told him
softly that she had known it all--the loneliness of one or two members
of a family in London, the comfortlessness of even the best of furnished
apartments. It was such considerations, in a great measure, which had
induced her to utilize her large house, much too large for herself and
the only daughter left at home with her, to receive a few old friends as
suitable boarders into her family. She had hoped to form a cheerful and
refined little society round her, and so to be of a little use to her
fellow-creatures. She might say she had succeeded in her humble mission,
she finished with artless benevolence. He met her half-way with
breathless alacrity. Had he and Kate but known in time Mrs. Jennings's
generous idea, what a boon it would have been if she had let them avail
themselves of it! Even yet if there ever occurred any change, any
opening--but he was afraid, he added in disconsolate tones, there never
would--the fortunate people would know too well when they were
happy--it would be doing him and Kate the greatest favour, the utmost
kindness to let them know. This was exactly the complimentary,
beseeching, deprecatory mode in which Mrs. Jennings liked business to be
conducted; whereas, if Hester had been present, she would have said in
the clumsiest, coarsest manner, "Mamma, there are some rooms vacant,
which any respectable person who cares to pay the rent may have."

But that was not Mrs. Jennings's plan. She said in her blandest
voice--"Well, Dr. Ironside, we must see what we can do for you and your
sister; I cannot bear to think of your feeling forlorn after what your
cousins did for my son Lawrence. We must stretch a point with regard to
accommodating you--that is, if you are not, both of you, dreadfully
particular. No, you are not at all difficult to put up, you and your
sister, you say? I am happy to h