The ladies all shook hands with the Warreners, who looked with surprise on
the neatness which prevailed in this crowded little room. On the ground,
by the walls, were several rolls of bedding covered over with shawls, and
forming seats or lounges. On the top of one of the piles two little
children were fast asleep. A girl of six sat in a corner on the ground
reading. There were two or three chairs, and these the ladies, seating
themselves on the divan, as they called the bedding, asked their visitors
to take.

Mrs. Hargreaves was perhaps forty-five years old, with a pleasant face,
marked by firmness and intelligence. Mrs. Righton was twenty-five or
twenty-six, and her pale face showed more than that of her mother the
effects of the anxiety and confinement of the siege. Edith and Nelly were
sixteen and fifteen respectively, and although pale, the siege had not
sufficed to mar their bright faces or to crush their spirits.

"Dear me," Nelly said, "why, you look to me to be quite boys; why, you
can't be much older than I am, are you?"

"My dear Nelly," her mother said reprovingly; but Dick laughed heartily.

"I am not much older than you are," he said; "a year, perhaps, but not
more. I am a midshipman in the Agamemnon. My brother is a year older than
I am, and he is gazetted to the Sixty-fourth; so you see, if the times
were different, we should be just the right age to be your devoted
servants."

"Oh, you can be that now," Nelly said. "I am sure we want them more than
ever; don't we, mamma?"