Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/68

42 custom-house, and my brothers and sisters and myself got some bad tea and some good bread-and-butter, and sat round in a circle on the floor in our night-gowns, with our food in the middle. Shortly after we heard a hooting, laughing, and wrangling in a shrill key, "Coralie, Rosalie, Florantine, Celestine, Euphrosine!" so I pricked up my ears in the hopes of seeing some of those pretty, well-dressed, piquante little soubrettes of whom we had heard mother talk, when in rolled about a dozen harpies with our luggage. At first I did not feel sure whether they were men or women; they had picturesque female dresses on, but their manners, voices, language, and gestures were those of the lowest costermongers. They spoke to me in patois, which I did not understand, and seemed surprised to see us all in our nightgowns, forgetting that we had little else to put on till they had brought the luggage. I gave them half a crown, which they appeared to think a great deal of money, and it inspirited them greatly. They danced about me, whirled me round, and in five minutes one had decked me up in a red petticoat, another arrayed me in her jacket, and a third clapped her dirty cap on my head, and I was completely attired à la marine. I felt so amused by the novelty of the thing that I forgot to be angry at their impertinence, and laughed as heartily as they did.

When they were gone, we set to work and unpacked and dressed, and by the afternoon were as comfortable as we could make ourselves; but we were thoroughly wretched, though mother kept telling us to look at