Hominy is going Toe stay until the end of the Fall, sir, with her married daughter at the settlement of New Thermopylae, three days this side of Eden. Any attention, sir, that you can show Toe Mrs. Hominy upon the journey, will be very grateful Toe the Major and our fellow-citizens. Mrs. Hominy, I wish you good night, ma'am, and a pleasant pro-gress on your rout!'
Martin could scarcely believe it; but he had gone, and Mrs. Hominy was drinking the milk.
`A'most used-up I am, I do declare!' she observed. `The jolting in the cars is pretty nigh as bad as if the rail was full of snags and sawyers.'
`Snags and sawyers, ma'am?' said Martin.
`Well, then, I do suppose you'll hardly realise my meaning, sir,' said Mrs. Hominy. `My! only think! Do tell!'
It did not appear that these expressions, although they seemed to conclude with an urgent entreaty, stood in need of any answer; for Mrs. Hominy, untying her bonnet-strings, observed that she would withdraw to lay that article of dress aside, and would return immediately.
`Mark!' said Martin. `Touch me, will you. Am I awake?'
`Hominy is, sir,' returned his partner: `Broad awake! Just the sort of woman, sir, as would be discovered with her eyes wide open, and her mind a-working for her country's good, at any hour of the day or night.'
They had no opportunity of saying more, for Mrs. Hominy stalked in again; very erect, in proof of her aristocratic blood; and holding in her clasped hands a red cotton pocket-handkerchief, perhaps a parting gift from that choice spirit, the Major. She had laid aside her bonnet, and now appeared in a highly aristocratic and classical cap, meeting beneath her chin: a style of head-dress so admirably adapted to, her countenance, that if the late Mr. Grimaldi had appeared in the lappets of Mrs. Siddons, a more complete effect could not have been produced.
Martin handed her to a chair. Her first words arrested him before he could get back to his own seat.
`Pray, sir!' said Mrs. Hominy, `where do you hail from?'
`I am afraid I am dull of comprehension,' answered Martin, `being extremely tired; but upon my word I don't understand you.'
Mrs. Hominy shook her head with a melancholy smile that said, not inexpressively, `They corrupt even the language in that old country!' and added then, as coming down a step or two to meet his low capacity, `Where was you rose?'
`Oh!' said Martin `I was born in Kent.'
`And how do you like our country, sir?' asked Mrs. Hominy.
`Very much indeed,' said Martin, half asleep. `At least--that is--pretty well, ma'am.'
`Most strangers--and partick'larly Britishers--are much surprised by what they see in the U-nited States,' remarked Mrs. Hominy.
`They have excellent reason to be so, ma'am,' said Martin. `I never was so much surprised in all my life.'
`Our institutions make our people smart much, sir,' Mrs. Hominy remarked.
`The most short-sighted man could see that at a glance, with his naked eye,' said Martin.
Mrs. Hominy was a philosopher and an authoress, and consequently had a pretty strong digestion; but this coarse, this indecorous phrase, was almost too much for her. For a gentleman sitting alone with a lady--although the door was open--to talk about a naked eye!
A long interval elapsed before even she, woman of masculine and towering intellect though she was, could call up fortitude enough to resume the conversation. But Mrs. Hominy was a traveller. Mrs. Hominy was a writer of reviews and analytical disquisitions. Mrs. Hominy had had her letters from abroad, beginning `My ever dearest blank,' and signed `The Mother of the Modern Gracchi' (meaning the married Miss Hominy), regularly printed in a public journal, with all the indignation in capitals, and all the sarcasm in italics. Mrs. Hominy had looked on foreign countries with the eye of a perfect republican hot from the model oven; and Mrs. Hominy could talk (or write) about them by the hour together. So Mrs. Hominy at last came down on Martin heavily, and as he was fast asleep, she had it all her own way, and bruised him to her heart's content.
