over the banisters.

"What is the matter? What have you done? I knew you were angry by the
way you looked."

"It was lovely!" I said. "I sent for Mrs. Black, and said, 'Mrs.
Black, do you know the name of the gentleman whom you asked to wipe
his shoes to-day?' 'No,' said she. 'It was the Duke of Abingdon,' I
said, sternly, well knowing the unspeakable reverence which the
middle-class English have for a title. She turned purple. She fell
back against the wall, muttering, 'The Duke of Abingdon! The Duke of
Abingdon!' I believe she is still leaning up against the wall
muttering that holy name. A title to Mrs. Black!"

The next day both the Tabbies were curtsying in the hall when we
started out. We were going on a coach to Richmond with Julia and her
husband, and another American girl, and then Julia's husband was going
to row us up the Thames to Hampton Court for tea, and they were all
going to dine with us at Scott's when we got home.

It was a lovely day. The trees were a mass of bloom, and everybody
ought to have enjoyed himself. We were having a very good time of it
among ourselves reading the absurd signs, until we noticed the three
girls who sat opposite to us. They had serious faces, and long,
consumptive teeth, which they never succeeded in completely hiding. I
knew just how they would look when they were dead; I knew that those
two long front teeth would still-- They listened to all we said
without a flicker of the eyelashes. Occasionally they looked down at
the size of the American girl's little feet and then involuntarily
drew their own back out of sight.