There she sits, and will be ill in private. The
strawberry leaves on her chariot-panels are engraved on her ladyship's
heart. If she were going to heaven instead of to Ostend, I rather think
she would expect to have DES PLACES RESERVEES for her, and would send to
order the best rooms. A courier, with his money-bag of office round his
shoulders--a huge scowling footman, whose dark pepper-and-salt livery
glistens with the heraldic insignia of the Carabases--a brazen-looking,
tawdry French FEMME-DE-CHAMBRE (none but a female pen can do justice
to that wonderful tawdry toilette of the lady's-maid EN VOYAGE)--and
a miserable DAME DE COMPAGNIE, are ministering to the wants of her
ladyship and her King Charles's spaniel. They are rushing to and fro
with eau-de-Cologne, pocket-handkerchiefs, which are all fringe and
cipher, and popping mysterious cushions behind and before, and in every
available corner of the carriage.
The little Marquis, her husband is walking about the deck in a
bewildered manner, with a lean daughter on each arm: the carroty-tufted
hope of the family is already smoking on the foredeck in a travelling
costume checked all over, and in little lacquer-tip pod jean boots, and
a shirt embroidered with pink boa-constrictors. 'What is it that gives
travelling Snobs such a marvellous propensity to rush into a costume?
Why should a man not travel in a coat, &c.
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