"Nothing could be better. There is a particularly nice person, a great
friend of mine, Mrs. Bingham, waiting for several days in hopes of a
chaperon to take care of herself and daughter--a lovely girl, only
nineteen, you wretch--to London, en route to the continent: the mamma
a delightful woman, and a widow, with a very satisfactory jointure--you
understand--but the daughter, a regular downright beauty, and a ward in
chancery, with how many thousand pounds I am afraid to trust myself to
say. You must know then they are the Binghams of--, upon my soul, I
forget where; but highly respectable."

"I regret I have not the pleasure of their acquaintance, and the more
because I shall not be able to make it now."

"As why?" said Tom gravely.

"Because, in the first place, I am so confoundedly pressed for time that
I could not possibly delay under any contingency that might arise; and
your fair friends are, doubtless, not so eagerly determined upon
travelling night and day till they reach Paris. Secondly, to speak
candidly, with my present hopes and fears weighing upon my mind, I should
not be the most agreeable travelling companion to two ladies with such
pretensions as you speak of; and thirdly,--"

"Confound your thirdly. I suppose we shall have sixteenthly, like a
Presbyterian minister's sermon, if I let you go on. Why, they'll not
delay you one hour. Mrs. Bingham, man, cares as little for the road as
yourself; and as for your petits soins, I suppose if you get the fair
ladies through the Custom-House, and see them safe in a London hotel,
it is all will be required at your hands."