Now, please show me the way to Mr. Breen's room--my brother was
here last night and--"
"Oh, the bald-headed gentleman?" exclaimed Mrs. Hicks. "Such a
dear, kind man; and it was as much as I could do to get him to bed
and he a--"
But Miss Felicia was already inside the sitting-room, her critical
eyes noting its bare, forbidding furnishing and appointment--she
had not yet let down her skirts, the floor not being inviting. As
each article passed in review--the unsteady rocking-chairs
upholstered in haircloth and protected by stringy tidies, the
disconsolate, almost bottomless lounge, fly-specked brass clock
and mantel ornaments, she could not but recall the palatial
entrance, drawing-room, and boudoir into which Parkins had ushered
her on that memorable afternoon when she had paid a visit to Mrs.
Arthur Breen--(her "last visit" the old lady would say with a sly
grimace at Holker, who had never forgiven "that pirate, Breen,"
for robbing Gilbert of his house).
"And this is what this idiot has got in exchange," she said to
herself as she peered into the dining-room beyond, with its
bespattered table-cloth flanked by cheap china plates and ivory
napkin rings--the castors mounting guard at either end.
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