We were to stay a month at Mr. Boythorn’s. My pet had scarcely been there a bright week, as I recollect the time, when one evening after we had finished helping the gardener in watering his flowers, and just as the candles were lighted, Charley, appearing with a very important air behind Ada’s chair, beckoned me mysteriously out of the room.
“Oh! If you please, miss,” said Charley in a whisper, with her eyes at their roundest and largest. “You’re wanted at the Dedlock Arms.”
“Why, Charley,” said I, “who can possibly want me at the public-house?”
“I don’t know, miss,” returned Charley, putting her head forward and folding her hands tight upon the band of her little apron, which she always did in the enjoyment of anything mysterious or confidential, “but it’s a gentleman, miss, and his compliments, and will you please to come without saying anything about it.”
“Whose compliments, Charley?”
“His’n, miss,” returned Charley, whose grammatical education was advancing, but not very rapidly.
“And how do you come to be the messenger, Charley?”
“I am not the messenger, if you please, miss,” returned my little maid. “It was W. Grubble, miss.”
“And who is W. Grubble, Charley?”
“Mister Grubble, miss,” returned Charley. “Don’t you know, miss? The Dedlock Arms, by W. Grubble,” which Charley delivered as if she were slowly spelling out the sign.
“Aye? The landlord, Charley?”