On the afternoon of the day next after the dinner of two at the Gate House, the bell is rung with the usual fluttering results.
“ Mr. Edwin Drood to see Miss Rosa.”
This is the announcement of the parlourmaid in chief. Miss Twinkleton, with an exemplary air of melancholy on her, turns to the sacrifice, and says, “You may go down, my dear.” Miss Bud goes down, followed by all eyes.
Mr. Edwin Drood is waiting in Miss Twinkleton’s own parlour: a dainty room, with nothing more directly scholastic in it than a terrestrial and a celestial globe. These expressive machines imply (to parents and guardians) that even when Miss Twinkleton retires into the bosom of privacy, duty may at any moment compel her to become a sort of Wandering Jewess, scouring the earth and soaring through the skies in