The count took up his hat; and musing all the way he went on the
unexpected scenes we meet in life,--disappointment where we expected
kindness, and friendship where no hope could arise,--he arrived at
the door of Lady Dundas, in Harley Street.
He was instantly let in, and with much ceremony ushered into a
splendid library, where he was told the ladies would attend him.
Before they entered, they allowed him time to examine its costly
furniture, its glittering book-cases, bird-cages, globes, and
reading-stands, all shining with burnished gilding; its polished
plaster casts of the nine muses, which stood in nine recesses about
the room, draperied with blue net, looped up with artificial roses;
and its fine cut-steel Grecian stove, on each side of which was
placed, on sandal-wood pedestals, two five-feet statues of Apollo and
Minerva.
Thaddeus had twice walked round these fopperies of learning, when the
door opened, and Lady Dundas, dressed in a morning wrapper of Indian
shawls, waddled into the apartment. She neither bowed nor curtseyed
to the count, who was standing when she entered, but looking at him
from head to foot, said as she passed, "So you are come;" and ringing
the bell, called to the servant in no very soft tones, "Tell Miss
Dundas the person Lady Tinemouth spoke of is here." Her ladyship then
sat down in one of the little gilded chairs, leaving Thaddeus still
standing on the spot where he had bowed to her entrance.
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