The little females sit white and silent: they are very warm, they are suffering horribly, but they make no complaint. Somehow they irresistibly remind me of little boiled hens with melted butter poured over them. They do not grumble, even to each other. Now if Dolly were here, I should keep up a never-ending stream of nouns and adjectives, and grow cool over the comfort I received. The British matron has closed her eyes, the account-book has slipped from her fingers, and she is asleep, giving utterance now and again to a majestic snore, that once or twice wakes her up, when she looks round fiercely at us all, as who should say, "Who made that noise? I did not," and then goes off again.
The fat parson is no longer saying, "Hey?" aloud, though he may be shouting it in the land of Nod; his flabby cheeks are damp and unbeautiful, his mouth is a long, long way open. As a rule, human beings do not look well asleep: there is a startling resemblance between them and the ruminating animal world when the brain is dormant and the soul away.
After a while I think I fall off into a doze like the rest. I am conscious of making a deliberate effort to keep my mouth shut when "Luttrell! Luttrell!" comes sweetly to my ear. I start up in prodigious excitement, dancing up and down on both the little females' feet this time, but in too great a hurry to apologise; in fact, I am out of the carriage and across the platform almost before the train has stopped.
There is Milly in her carriage, but an ampler, grander, different Milly, somehow, to the bouncing, golden-haired, handsome sister of the old days.
"How do you do?" I say, rushing up to her. "How glad I am to see you!" And I give her a hug, for I have not seen her for a long, long while.
"I am so glad you have come," she says; "but, good heavens, Nell! what a hat you have got on!"
