The Steam-Packet: A Tale of the River and the Ocean — page 37: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

20 THE STEAM PACKET. gether with feelings of inexplicable emotion. ‘‘ And he is so fond of them !”’ With these words, the poetic young lady hurled her Byron to the farther side of the room, and rushed precipitately down stairs fet her mother. ! ‘Well, I’m sure! here’s a fuss about a few jellies and creams!” said Miss Sarah. ‘It would have been much worse if my new music were lost.” ‘‘ Let’s have a game of romps, Sally,—now that we are all alone,— eh, dear?” cried Belinda, skipping from one e end of the room to the etien | But just at that moment, before Miss Sarah had time to vouchsafe a reply (which, we are afraid, would not have been a very gracious one) to her volatile sister, a tremendous double-knock resounded up and down the street, and awoke every echo from cellar to garret throughout the house. Then, what a scene of confusion ensued! Mrs. Pifpaf rushed up stairs with the velocity of a race-horse, threw herself down upon the sofa, composed herself into a languishing and highly sentimental position, pressed her handkerchief, as if with agonising throe, against her poor forehead, and seemed resigned to any fate, however severe, which might be in store for her in this life. Miss Aramintha Pifpaf followed close at her heels, seized upon the Byron © once more, hastened to smooth the leaves which had been ruffled by the indignant treatment it had experienced, and then seated herself with studied listlessness upon a chair, where she speedily appeared to be absorbed in the study of the great poet. Miss Belinda resumed her exercise of jumping on and off the ottoman; and Miss Sarah began the middle of an air, to make believe that she had been playing some time, and consequently had not struck up merely for the behoof of the expected guests. The scene would really remind one of the interior of the green-room, where the king has just accepted a drink of porter out of the clown’s pewter-pot, when the manager’s bell summons them ~ to resume all onasudden the dignity and the characters which they had temporarily laid aside. And so it is in the more important affairs of life: —the merchant, the statesman, the general, the author, assume for a few moments, when no one is nigh, the real characters which nature has given them ;—but the time for exertion comes—like the double- knock at the door, or the manager’s bell—and they hurriedly put on the demeanour which policy alone compels them habitually to adopt. The moment Mrs. Pifpaf and her daughters were thus prepared to receive their guests, footsteps were heard ascending the stairs, and Captain Pentonville was announced. Most urbane was the manner in Eomicbooks.co