Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, No. 15, August, 1851Various
General
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, No. 15, August, 1851
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Civilization -- Periodicals; Culture -- Periodicals
"But we don't know his address, and Lunnon is a vast place, sir."
"I am going to London, and will find it out."
"Ah, sir, you seem very kind; and sin' she must go to Lunnon (for what
can we do with her here?--she's too genteel for service), I wish she was
going with you."
"With me!" said Leonard, startled; "with me! Well, why not?"
"I am sure she comes of good blood, sir. You would have known her father
was quite the gentleman, only to see him die, sir. He went off so kind
and civil like, as if he was ashamed to give so much trouble--quite a
gentleman, if ever there was one. And so are you, sir, I'm sure," said
the landlady, courtesying; "I know what gentlefolk be. I've been a
housekeeper in the first of families in this very shire, sir, though I
can't say I've served in Lunnon; and so, as gentlefolks know each other,
I've no doubt you could find out her relations. Dear--dear! Coming,
coming!"
Here there were loud cries for the hostess, and she hurried away. The
farmers and drovers were beginning to depart, and their bills were to be
made out and paid. Leonard saw his hostess no more that night. The last
hip--hip--hurrah, was heard; some toast, perhaps, to the health of the
county members;--and the chamber of woe, beside Leonard's, rattled with
the shout. By-and-by silence gradually succeeded the various dissonant
sounds below. The carts and gigs rolled away; the clatter of hoofs on
the road ceased; there was then a dumb dull sound as of locking-up, and
low humming of voices below, and footsteps mounting the stairs to bed,
with now and then a drunken hiccup or maudlin laugh, as some conquered
votary of Bacchus was fairly carried up to his domicile.
All, then, at last, was silent, just as the clock from the church
sounded the stroke of eleven.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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