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ON HIS WAY THROUGH THE WORLD 478
he composed his eloquent " own correspondence"), he had occasion
to speak a little French, but it never came very trippingly from his
stout English tongue. "You don't suppose I would like to be
taken for a Frenchman," he would say, with much gravity. I
wonder who ever thought of mistaking friend Philip for a Frenchman
?
As for that faithful Little Sister, her house and heart were still
at the young man's service. We have not visited Thornhaugh
Street for some time. Mr. Philip, whom we have been bound to
attend, has been too much occupied with his love-making to bestow
much thought on his affectionate little friend. She has been trudging
meanwhile on her humble course of life, cheerful, modest,
laborious, doing her duty, with a helping little hand ready to
relieve many a fallen wayfarer on her road. She had a room
vacant in her house when Philip came :—a room, indeed ! Would
she not have had a house vacant, if Philip wanted it ? But in the
interval since we saw her last, the Little Sister, too, has had to
assume black robes. Her father, the old Captain, has gone to his
rest. His place is vacant in the little parlour: his bedroom is
ready for Philip, as long as Philip will stay. She did not profess
to feel much affliction for the loss of the Captain. She talked of
him constantly as though he were present ; and made a supper for
Philip, and seated him in her pa's chair. How she bustled about
on the night when Philip arrived ! what a beaming welcome there
was in her kind eyes ! Her modest hair was touched with silver
now ; but her cheeks were like apples ; her little figure was neat,
and light, and active : and her voice, with its gentle laugh, and
little sweet bad grammar, has always seemed one of the sweetest
of voices to me.
Very soon after Philip's arrival in London, Mrs. Brandon paid
a visit to the wife of Mr. Firmin's humble servant and biographer,
and the two women had a fine sentimental consultation. All good
women, you know, are sentimental. The idea of young lovers, of
match-making, of amiable poverty, tenderly excites and interests
them. My wife, at this time, began to pour off fine long letters
to Miss Baynes, to which the latter modestly and dutifully replied,
with many expressions of fervour and gratitude for the interest
which her friend in London was pleased to take in the little maid.
I saw by these answers that Charlotte's union with Philip was
taken as a received point by these two ladies. They discussed the
ways and means. They did not talk about broughams, settlements,
town and country houses, pin-moneys, trousseaux: and my wife,
in computing their sources of income, always pointed out that Miss
Charlotte's fortune, though certainly small, would give a very