The next day, Mrs. Sandboys made an excursion to Wimbledon, and came back to Town delighted with the “ladies’ establishment.” Everything was so scrupulously clean,—the bed-furniture and the boards were as white as the Sour Milk Gill opposite their window at Buttermere; and the whole place was so airy and beautifully ventilated, that she believed Jobby might have flown his kite in the principal bed-room. Then the terms were so moderate, and the lady so obliging—she really thought she was one of the nicest old bodies she had seen for many a long day;—altogether, she was quite in love with the place, and everything and everybody about it. She had arranged, she said, to go in the very next day; for, really, that spiteful old thing of a Mrs. Fokesell did make the house so uncomfortable, that the sooner they got out of her power the better. * * * * * The next morning a cab was hired, to carry the Sandboys and their luggage to the Waterloo terminus. The parting with Mrs. Fokesell was by no means of a pathetic character, though, when the time came for saying good bye, the landlady, who had been considerably mollified by the payment of her bill, hoped as how that bygones would be bygones, and acknowledged that she might have behaved a little “hindiscreet” on the late occasion, but her blood was up, she said, and then she wasn’t her own missus. In a few hours afterwards, the family of the Sandboys were safely landed at “Parthenon House,” Wimbledon Common. Here nothing occurred to ruffle the serenity of their retirement for some few days. On the fifth day, however, from their entering the establishment, the French master, who was _really_ a “Natif de Paris,” and had published a sheet wherein the whole of the French genders were ingeniously reduced to two, called to request that a friend of his might be accommodated with a temporary apartment under that roof. His friend had come to England to be present at the opening of the Great Exhibition, and wished for a large airy room. The mother of the head of the establishment was delighted to have the opportunity of disposing of her left wing—if the gentleman would not object to the beds remaining in the apartment, for she had no other place wherein to stow them. The French master observed, that he was sure his friend and compatriot would be too happy to oblige so young and beautiful a lady (the mother had long ago taken to false fronts), and with this enchanting tara-diddle, he withdrew from the premises, leaving the old lady to declare that there was a something—she didn’t know what—about French manners, that to her mind far surpassed the English. The day after this, the French master accompanied his friend M. le Comte de Sanschemise, who came in a large cloak, an immense Spanish hat, and a small reticule-like carpet bag, to take possession of his apartment and its extensive range of beds.