Finding that
Samuel's repeated promises to rise were the merest evasion, she
rushed into the room where he lay fly-fretted, dragged the pillows
from under his tousled head, and so belaboured him in schoolboy
fashion that he had no choice but to leap towards his garments. In
five minutes he roared down the kitchen-stairs for shaving-water,
and in five minutes more was seated in his shirt-sleeves, consuming
fried bacon with prodigious appetite. Bessie had the twofold
occupation of waiting upon him and finishing the toilet of the baby;
she talked incessantly and laughed with an echoing shrillness which
would have given a headache for the rest of the day to any one of
average nervous sensibility.
They were going to visit Samuel's parents, who lived at Greenwich.
Bessie had not yet enjoyed an opportunity of exhibiting her
first-born to the worthy couple; she had, however, written many and
long letters on the engrossing subject, and was just a little
fluttered with natural anxiety lest the infant's appearance or
demeanour should disappoint the expectations she had excited. Samuel
found his delight in foretelling the direst calamities.
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