boarding-house were the custom of the whole town. (These hours even since
my visit to Kings Port, are beginning to change. But such backsliding is
much condemned.) Upon an afternoon some days later, having seen in the
extra looking-glass, which I had been obliged to provide for myself, that
the part in my back hair was perfect, I set forth again, better informed.

As I rang the first doorbell, another visitor came up the steps, a
beautiful old lady in widow's dress, a cardcase in her hand.

"Have you rung, sir?" said she, in a manner at once gentle and
voluminous.

"Yes, madam."

Nevertheless she pulled it again. "It doesn't always ring," she explained,
"unless one is accustomed to it, which you are not."

She addressed me with authority, exactly like Aunt Carola, and with even
greater precision in her good English and good enunciation. Unlike the
girl at the Exchange, she had no accent; her language was simply the
perfection of educated utterance; it also was racy with the free
censoriousness which civilized people of consequence are apt to exercise
the world over. "I was sorry to miss your visit," she began (she knew me,
you see, perfectly); "you will please to come again soon, and console me
for my disappointment. I am Mrs. Gregory St. Michael, and my house is in
Le Maire Street (Pronounced in Kings Port, Lammarree) as you have been so
civil as to find out. And how does your Aunt Carola do in these
contemptible times? You can tell her from me that vulgarization is
descending, even upon Kings Port."