expected. The herbalist led his customer to an
upper room, in which were stored sundry curiosities, and happened casually to
say that he was desirous of finding a lodger for two superfluous chambers.
Peak's inquiries led to his seeing Mrs. Button, whom he found to be a
Frenchwoman of very pleasing appearance; she spoke fluent French-English,
anything but disagreeable to an ear constantly tormented by the London
vernacular. After short reflection he decided to take and furnish the rooms. It
proved a most fortunate step, for he lived (after the outlay for furniture) at
much less expense than theretofore, and in comparative luxury. Cleanliness,
neatness, good taste by no means exhausted Mrs. Button's virtues; her cooking
seemed to the lodger of incredible perfection, and the infinite goodwill with
which he was tended made strange contrast with the base usage he had commonly
experienced.
    In these ten years he had paid but four visits to Twybridge, each of brief
duration. Naturally there were changes among his kinsfolk: Charlotte, after an
engagement which prolonged itself to the fifth twelvemonth, had become Mrs.
Cusse, and her husband now had a draper's shop of his own, with two children
already born into the world of draperdom. Oliver, twice fruitlessly affianced,
had at length (when six-and-twenty) wedded a young person whom his mother and
his aunt both regarded as a most undesirable connection, the daughter (aged
thirty-two) of a man who was drinking himself to death on such money as he could
earn by casual reporting for a Twybridge newspaper. Mrs. Peak the elder now
abode with her sister at the millinery shop, and saw little of her two married
children. With Oliver and Charlotte their brother had no sympathy, and affected
none; he never wrote to them, nor they to him; but years had strengthened his
regard for his mother, and with her he had fairly regular correspondence. Gladly
he would have seen her more often, but the air of shopkeeping he was compelled
to breathe when he visited Twybridge nauseated and repelled him. He recognised
the suitability both of Oliver and Charlotte for the positions to which life had
consigned them - they suffered from no profitless aspiration; but it seemed to
him a just cause of quarrel with fate that his kindred should thus have
relapsed, instead of bettering the rank their father had bequeathed to them. He
would not avow to such friends as Moxey and Earwaker the social standing of his
only recognised relatives.
    As for the unrecognised, he had long ago heard with some satisfaction that
Andrew Peak, having ultimately