'
So saying, John Browdie--for he it was--opened the coach-door, and
tapping Mrs Browdie, late Miss Price, on the cheek as he looked in,
burst into a boisterous fit of laughter.
'Weel!' said John. 'Dang my bootuns if she bean't asleep agean!'
'She's been asleep all night, and was, all yesterday, except for a
minute or two now and then,' replied John Browdie's choice, 'and I was
very sorry when she woke, for she has been SO cross!'
The subject of these remarks was a slumbering figure, so muffled in
shawl and cloak, that it would have been matter of impossibility to
guess at its sex but for a brown beaver bonnet and green veil which
ornamented the head, and which, having been crushed and flattened, for
two hundred and fifty miles, in that particular angle of the vehicle
from which the lady's snores now proceeded, presented an appearance
sufficiently ludicrous to have moved less risible muscles than those of
John Browdie's ruddy face.
'Hollo!' cried John, twitching one end of the dragged veil. 'Coom,
wakken oop, will 'ee?'
After several burrowings into the old corner, and many exclamations of
impatience and fatigue, the figure struggled into a sitting posture; and
there, under a mass of crumpled beaver, and surrounded by a semicircle
of blue curl-papers, were the delicate features of Miss Fanny Squeers.
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