Well, this was comfortable
too; but even this was not all--for in the bar, seated at tea at the
nicest possible little table, drawn close up before the brightest
possible little fire, was a buxom widow of somewhere about
eight-and-forty or thereabouts, with a face as comfortable as the
bar, who was evidently the landlady of the house, and the
supreme ruler over all these agreeable possessions. There was
only one drawback to the beauty of the whole picture, and that
was a tall man--a very tall man--in a brown coat and bright
basket buttons, and black whiskers and wavy black hair, who
was seated at tea with the widow, and who it required no great
penetration to discover was in a fair way of persuading her to be
a widow no longer, but to confer upon him the privilege of
sitting down in that bar, for and during the whole remainder of
the term of his natural life.
'Tom Smart was by no means of an irritable or envious
disposition, but somehow or other the tall man with the brown
coat and the bright basket buttons did rouse what little gall he
had in his composition, and did make him feel extremely indignant,
the more especially as he could now and then observe, from
his seat before the glass, certain little affectionate familiarities
passing between the tall man and the widow, which sufficiently
denoted that the tall man was as high in favour as he was in size.
Pages:
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347