After the luncheon he bethought him of the chair in the library, and retired there. It was indeed a most beautiful chair--low in the seat, broad and deep, not too soft--and there was a footstool.
His lordship sat down in this chair, beside a large and cheerful fire, put up his feet, and surveyed the room. Books were ranged round all the walls--books from floor to ceiling. There was a large table with many drawers, covered with papers, magazines, and reviews, and provided with ink and pens. The door was shut, and there was no sound save of a passing carriage in the square.
"This," said his lordship "seems better than Stepney Green; I wish Nathaniel were here to see me."
With these words upon his lips, he fell into a deep slumber.
At half-past three his wife came to wake him up. She had ordered the carriage and was ready and eager for another drive along those wonderful streets which she had seen for the first time. She roused him with great difficulty, and persuaded him, not without words of refusal, to come with her. Of course she was perfectly wide awake.
"This," she cried, once more in the carriage, "this is London, indeed. Oh! to think we have wasted months at Stepney, thinking that was town. Timothy, we must wake up; we have a great deal to see and to learn. Look at the shops, look at the carriages. Do tell! It's better than Boston city. Now that we have got the carriage we will go out every day and see something; I've told them to drive past the Queen's Palace, and to show us where the Prince of Wales lives. Before long we shall go there ourselves, of course, with the rest of the nobility. There's only one thing that troubles me."
"What is that, Clara Martha? You air thinkin', perhaps, that it isn't in nature for them to keep the dinners every day up to the same pitch of elevation?"
She repressed her indignation at this unworthy suggestion.
"No, Timothy; and I hope your lordship will remember that in our position we can afford to despise mere considerations of meat and drink, and wherewithal we shall be clothed." She spoke as if pure Christianity was impossible beneath their rank, and, indeed, she had never felt so truly virtuous before. "No, Timothy, my trouble is that we want to see everything there is to be seen."