one ear in his head-stall.

Mrs. Bowen had no more scruple than another woman in stopping travel and
traffic in a public street for her convenience. She now entered into a
brisk parting conversation with Colville, such as ladies love, blocking
the narrow sidewalk with herself, her daughter, and her open carriage
door, and making people walk round her cab, in the road, which they did
meekly enough, with the Florentine submissiveness to the pretensions of
any sort of vehicle. She said a dozen important things that seemed to
have just come into her head, and, "Why, how stupid I am!" she called
out, making Colville check the driver in his first start, after she had
got into the cab. "We are to have a few people tonight. If you have no
engagement, I should be so glad to have you come. Can't you?"

"Yes, I can," said Colville, admiring the whole transaction and the
parties to it with a passive smile.

After finding her pocket, she found that her card-case was not in it,
but in the purse she had given Effie to carry; but she got her address
at last, and gave it to Colville, though he said he should remember it
without. "Any time between nine and eleven," she said. "It's so nice of
you to promise!"

She questioned him from under her half-lifted eyelids, and he added,
with a laugh, "I'll come!" and was rewarded with two pretty smiles, just
alike, from mother and daughter, as they drove away.