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186 only objection she could urge was the sorrow she should feel at putting us to so much trouble, the matter was soon decided, and Mrs. Deeks received instructions to make our room as suitable to the necessities of two ladies as circumstances would allow, while we finished supper.

We soon became very pleasant and chatty together, a state of things for which, I believe, we were in no small measure indebted to the fact that tea formed one of the items in our repast, and that Mrs. Talboys presided at the tea-pot. There are no circumstances better calculated to make an Englishwoman look and feel thoroughly at home, under difficulties, then the sitting at the head of a table pouring out tea. It is a position that comes naturally to her, and she fits into it as a ball fits into a socket. She handles your tea-pot, and your milk-jug, and your sugar-basin, and your cups and saucers with an air of understanding their various relations, properties, and proportions, to which no bachelor—or married man, for matter of that—was ever known to attain. It puts her on good terms with herself and her surroundings, and Maxwell and I agreed that tea in chambers, presided over by a lady, although in Mrs. Deeks's underclothing, was as different a thing altogether to tea under bachelor circumstances as rum-punch to curds and whey.

Maxwell and I took our leave of Mrs. and Miss Talboys with as much ceremony as if they had been our hostesses and we their guests, and started off for Sams', which then stood opposite King's College. After passing an unsatisfactory night at that dingy establishment, we