XXXIII

I would, just to see what sort of people are under the same roof with me. So I made myself respectable, and tried to slip in behind Mrs. Kirke; but as she is short, and I’m tall, my efforts at concealment were rather a failure. She gave me a seat by her, and after my face cooled off, I plucked up courage, and looked about me. The long table was full, and everyone intent on getting their dinner⁠—the gentlemen especially, who seemed to be eating on time, for they bolted in every sense of the word, vanishing as soon as they were done. There was the usual assortment of young men absorbed in themselves; young couples absorbed in each other; married ladies in their babies, and old gentlemen in politics. I don’t think I shall care to have much to do with any of them, except one sweet-faced maiden lady, who looks as if she had something in her. “Cast away at the very bottom of the table was the Professor, shouting answers to the questions of a very inquisitive, deaf old gentleman on one side, and talking philosophy with a Frenchman on the other. If Amy had been here, she’d have turned her back on him forever, because, sad to relate, he had a great appetite, and shovelled in his dinner in a manner which would have horrified ‘her ladyship.’ I didn’t mind, for I like ‘to see folks eat with a relish,’ as Hannah says, and the poor man must have needed a deal of food after teaching idiots all day. “As I went upstairs after dinner, two of the young men were settling their hats before the hall-mirror, and I heard one say low to the other, ‘Who’s the new party?’ “ ‘Governess, or something of that sort.’