"I'll just send out to a hotel near by," interrupted kind Mrs. B., "and see if you can be accommodated a day or two." How very bright the room became! The world was not hollow, after all, nor our dolls stuffed with sawdust. Even the cabman's rattle at the knocker, and demand of an extra sixpence for waiting, could not disturb our serenity. The messenger returned. Yes; we could be taken in (?) at the H. house; and accepting Mrs. B.'s invitation to return and spend the evening, we mounted to our places in the little cab, as though it had been a triumphal car, and were whizzed around the corner at an alarming pace by the impatient cabman.
I should be sorry to prejudice any one against the H. house--which I might perhaps say is not the H. house at all; I hardly like to compare it to a whited sepulchre, though that simile did occur to my mind. Very fair in its exterior it was, with much plate glass, and ground glass, and gilding of letters, and shining of brass. It had been two dwelling-houses; it was now one select family hotel. But the two dwelling-houses had never been completely merged into one; never married, but joined, like the Siamese twins. There was a confusing double stairway; having ascended the right one, you were morally certain to descend the wrong. There was a confusing double hall, with doors in every direction opening everywhere but upon the way you desired to go. We mounted to the top of the house, followed by two porters with our luggage, one chambermaid with the key, another to ask if we would dine, and two more bearing large tin cans of hot water. We grew confused, and gasped, "We--we believe we don't care for any more at present, thank you," and so dismissed them all. The furniture was so out of proportion to the room that I think it must have been introduced in an infant state, and grown to its present proportions there. The one window was so high that we were obliged to jump up to look out over the mirror upon the bureau--a gymnastic feat we did not care to repeat. The bed curtains were gray; indeed there was a gray chill through the whole place. We sat down to hold a council of war. We resolved ourselves into a committee of ways and means, our feet upon the cans of hot water. "Pleasant," I said, as a leading remark, my heart beginning to warm under the influence of the hot water. "Pleasant?" repeated Mrs. K.; "it's enough to make one homesick. We can't stay here." "But," I interposed, "suppose we leave here, and can't get in anywhere else?" A vision of the Babes in the Wood rose before me. There was a rap at the door; the fourth chambermaid, to announce dinner. We finished our consultation hurriedly, and descended to the parlor, where we were to dine. It was a small room, already occupied by a large table and a party from the country; an old lady to play propriety, a middle-aged person of severe countenance to act it, and a pair of incipient and insipid lovers. He was a spectacled prig in a white necktie, a clergyman, I suppose, though he looked amazingly like a waiter, and she a little round combination of dimples and giggle.