'That one with the coal-black eyes,' I replied.
'Hush!' says he; and the gentleman with whom he was talking moved off,
with rather a discomfited air.
When he was gone Wagley burst out laughing. 'COAL-BLACK eyes!' said
he; 'you've just hit it. That's Mrs. Sackville Maine, and that was her
husband who just went away. He's a coal-merchant, Snob my boy, and I
have no doubt Mr. Perkins's Wallsends are supplied from his wharf. He is
in a flaming furnace when he hears coals mentioned. He and his wife and
his mother are very proud of Mrs. Sackville's family; she was a Miss
Chuff, daughter of Captain Chuff, R.N. That is the widow; that stout
woman in crimson tabinet, battling about the odd trick with old Mr.
Dumps, at the card-table.'
And so, in fact, it was. Sackville Maine (whose name is a hundred times
more elegant, surely, than that of Chuff) was blest with a pretty wife,
and a genteel mother-in-law, both of whom some people may envy him.
Soon after his marriage the old lady was good enough to come and pay him
a visit--just for a fortnight--at his pretty little cottage, Kennington
Oval; and, such is her affection for the place, has never quitted it
these four years. She has also brought her son, Nelson Collingwood
Chuff, to live with her; but he is not so much at home as his mamma,
going as a day-boy to Merchant Taylors' School, where he is getting a
sound classical education.
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