It more frequently happened that only one or two persons partook
of this refreshment on the same evening; or, supposing the case
of a single gentleman, Mrs. Martha, though she did not hesitate
to admit him to her boudoir, after the privilege of the French
and the old Scottish school, took care, as she used to say, to
prescribe all possible propriety, by commanding the attendance of
her principal female attendant, Mrs. Alice Lambskin, who might,
from the gravity and dignity of her appearance, have sufficed to
matronize a whole boarding-school, instead of one maiden lady of
eighty and upwards. As the weather permitted, Mrs. Alice sat
duly remote from the company in a FAUTEUIL behind the projecting
chimney-piece, or in the embrasure of a window, and prosecuted in
Carthusian silence, with indefatigable zeal, a piece of
embroidery, which seemed no bad emblem of eternity.
But I have neglected all this while to introduce my friend
herself to the reader--at least so far as words can convey the
peculiarities by which her appearance and conversation were
distinguished.
A little woman, with ordinary features and an ordinary form, and
hair which in youth had no decided colour, we may believe Mrs.
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