"Indeed!" exclaimed Dempsey, who really felt horrified at this undervaluing judgment of what every boarder regarded as the very sanctum of the Fumbally Temple.
"Truth, every word of it!" resumed Mrs. Fum. "I thought my ears deceived me, as she said to her mother, 'Oh, it 's all very neat and clean!'--neat and clean, Mr. Dempsey! The elegant rug which I worked myself--the pointer--and the wild duck."
"Like life, by Jove, if it was n't that the dog has only three legs."
"Perspective, Mr. Dempsey, don't forget its perspective; and if the bird's wings are maroon, I could n't help it, it was the only color to be had in the town."
"The group is fine,--devilish fine!" said Paul, with the air of one whose word was final.
"'Neat and clean' were the expressions she used. I could have cried as I heard it." Here the lady, probably in consideration for the omission, wiped her eyes, and dropped her voice to a very sympathetic key. "She meant it well, depend upon it, Mrs. Fum, she meant it well."
"And the old lady," resumed Mrs. Fumbally, deaf to every consolation, "lay back in her chair this way, and said, 'Oh, it will all do very well,--you 'll not find us troublesome, Mrs. Flumary!' I haven't been the head of this establishment eight-and-twenty years to be called Flumary. How these airs are to be tolerated by the other boarders, I'm sure is more than I can say."
It appeared more than Mr. Dempsey could say also, if one might pronounce from the woe-begone expression of his face; for, up to this moment totally wrapped up in the mysterious portion of the affair, he had lost sight of all the conflicting interests this sudden advent would call into activity.
"That wasn't all," continued Mrs. Fumbally; "for when I told them the dinner-hour was five, the old lady interrupted me with, 'For the present, with your permission, we should prefer dining at six.' Did any one ever hear the like? I 'll have a pretty rebellion in the house, when it gets out! Mrs. Mackay will have her tea upstairs every night; Mr. Dunlop will always breakfast in bed. I would n't be surprised if Miss Boyle stood out for broth in the middle of the day."
"Oh!" exclaimed Paul, holding up both hands in horror.
"I vow and protest, I expect that next!" exclaimed Mrs. Fum, as folding her arms, and fixing her eyes rigidly on the grate, she sat, the ideal of abused and injured benevolence. "Indeed, Mr. Dempsey," said she, after a long silence on both sides, "it would be a great breach of the regard many years of intimacy with you has formed, if I did not say, that your affections are misplaced. Beauty is a perishable gift."
