couple of hours the noble Refrigerator, at no time less
than a hundred years behind the period, got about five centuries in arrear, and
delivered solemn political oracles appropriate to that epoch. He finished by
freezing a cup of tea for his own drinking, and retiring at his lowest
temperature.
    Then Mrs. Gowan, who had been accustomed in her days of state to retain a
vacant arm-chair beside her to which to summon her devoted slaves, one by one,
for short audiences as marks of her especial favour, invited Clennam with a turn
of her fan to approach the presence. He obeyed, and took the tripod recently
vacated by Lord Lancaster Stiltstalking.
    »Mr. Clennam,« said Mrs. Gowan, »apart from the happiness I have in becoming
known to you, though in this odiously inconvenient place - a mere barrack -
there is a subject on which I am dying to speak to you. It is the subject in
connection with which my son first had, I believe, the pleasure of cultivating
your acquaintance.«
    Clennam inclined his head, as a generally suitable reply to what he did not
yet quite understand.
    »First,« said Mrs. Gowan, »now is she really pretty?«
    In nobody's difficulties, he would have found it very difficult to answer;
very difficult indeed to smile, and say »Who?«
    »Oh! You know!« she returned. »This flame of Henry's. This unfortunate
fancy. There! If it is a point of honour that I should originate the name - Miss
Mickles - Miggles.«
    »Miss Meagles,« said Clennam, »is very beautiful.«
    »Men are so often mistaken on those points,« returned Mrs. Gowan, shaking
her head, »that I candidly confess to you I feel anything but sure of it, even
now; though it is something to have Henry corroborated with so much gravity and
emphasis. He picked the people up at Rome, I think?«
    The phrase would have given nobody mortal offence. Clennam replied, »Excuse
me, I doubt if I understand your expression.«
    »Picked the people up,« said Mrs. Gowan, tapping the sticks of her closed
fan (a large green one, which she used as a hand-screen) upon her little table.
»Came upon them. Found them out. Stumbled against them.«
    »The people?«
    »Yes. The Miggles people.«
    »I really cannot say,« said Clennam, »where my friend Mr. Meagles first
presented Mr.