About this time there drove up to an exceedingly snug and

well-appointed house in Park Lane, a travelling chariot with a lozenge on

the panels, a discontented female in a green veil and crimped curls on

the rumble, and a large and confidential man on the box. It was the

equipage of our friend Miss Crawley, returning from Hants. The

carriage windows were shut; the fat spaniel, whose head and tongue

ordinarily lolled out of one of them, reposed on the lap of the

discontented female. When the vehicle stopped, a large round bundle of

shawls was taken out of the carriage by the aid of various domestics

and a young lady who accompanied the heap of cloaks. That bundle

contained Miss Crawley, who was conveyed upstairs forthwith, and put

into a bed and chamber warmed properly as for the reception of an

invalid. Messengers went off for her physician and medical man. They

came, consulted, prescribed, vanished. The young companion of Miss

Crawley, at the conclusion of their interview, came in to receive their

instructions, and administered those antiphlogistic medicines which the

eminent men ordered.

Captain Crawley of the Life Guards rode up from Knightsbridge Barracks

the next day; his black charger pawed the straw before his invalid

aunt's door. He was most affectionate in his inquiries regarding that

amiable relative. There seemed to be much source of apprehension. He

found Miss Crawley's maid (the discontented female) unusually sulky and

despondent; he found Miss Briggs, her dame de compagnie, in tears alone

in the drawing-room. She had hastened home, hearing of her beloved

friend's illness. She wished to fly to her couch, that couch which

she, Briggs, had so often smoothed in the hour of sickness. She was

denied admission to Miss Crawley's apartment. A stranger was

administering her medicines--a stranger from the country--an odious

Miss ... --tears choked the utterance of the dame de compagnie, and

she buried her crushed affections and her poor old red nose in her

pocket handkerchief.

Rawdon Crawley sent up his name by the sulky femme de chambre, and Miss

Crawley's new companion, coming tripping down from the sick-room, put

a little hand into his as he stepped forward eagerly to meet her, gave

a glance of great scorn at the bewildered Briggs, and beckoning the

young Guardsman out of the back drawing-room, led him downstairs into

that now desolate dining-parlour, where so many a good dinner had been

celebrated.

Here these two talked for ten minutes, discussing, no doubt, the

symptoms of the old invalid above stairs; at the end of which period

the parlour bell was rung briskly, and answered on that instant by Mr.

Bowls, Miss Crawley's large confidential butler (who, indeed, happened

to be at the keyhole during the most part of the interview); and the

Captain coming out, curling his mustachios, mounted the black charger

pawing among the straw, to the admiration of the little blackguard boys

collected in the street. He looked in at the dining-room window,

managing his horse, which curvetted and capered beautifully--for one

instant the young person might be seen at the window, when her figure

vanished, and, doubtless, she went upstairs again to resume the

affecting duties of benevolence.




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