"
The moralizing cook had now brought the whole kitchen on her
shoulders. The men abused her for a surly old maid, and the women
tittered, whilst they seconded her censure by cutting sly jokes on
the blushing face of poor Sally, who stood almost crying by the side
of her champion, Jenkins.
Whilst this hubbub was going forward below stairs, its unconscious
subject was, as Sally had described, sitting in a chair close to the
fire, with his feet on the fender, his arms folded, and his eyes bent
on the flames. He mused; but his ideas followed each other in such
quick confused succession, it hardly could be said he thought of
anything.
The entrance of dinner roused him from his reverie. It was carried in
by at least half a dozen waiters. The count had been so accustomed to
a numerous suite of attendants, he did not observe the parcelling out
of his temperate meal: one bringing in the fowl, another the bread,
his neighbor the solitary plate, and the rest in like order, so
solicitous were the male listeners in the kitchen to see this
wonderful Russian.
Thaddeus partook but lightly of the refreshment. Being already
fatigued in body, and dizzy with the motion of the vessel, as soon as
the cloth was withdrawn, he ordered a night candle, and desired to be
shown to his chamber.
Jenkins, whom the sight of the embroidered star confirmed in his
decision that the foreigner must be a person of consequence, with
increased agility whipped up the portmanteau and led the way to the
sleeping-rooms.
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