volution generally, but was
ignorant of such particulars as the Battle of Bunker Hill, and the
Surrender of Cornwallis, as well as the throwing of the Tea into Boston
Harbor; he was much struck by this incident, and said, And quite right,
he was sure.
He told Clementina that her friends the Milrays had taken the steamer
for London in the morning. He believed they were going to Egypt for the
winter. Cairo, he said, was great fun, and he advised Mrs. Lander, if
she found Florence a bit dull, to push on there. She asked if it was
an easy place to get to, and he assured her that it was very easy from
Italy.
Mrs. Lander was again at home in her world of railroads and hotels; but
she confessed, after he left them at the next station, that she should
have felt more at home if he had been going on to London with them. She
philosophized him to the disadvantage of her own countrymen as much less
offish than a great many New York and Boston peuple. He had given her
a good opinion of the whole English nation; and the clergyman, who had
been so nice to them at Liverpool, confirmed her friendly impressions of
England by getting her a small omnibus at the station in London before
he got a cab for himself and his wife, and drove away to complete his
own journey on another road. She celebrated the omnibus as if it were
an effect of his goodness in her behalf. She admired its capacity for
receiving all their trunks, and saving the trouble and delay of the
express, which always vexed her so much in New York, and which had
nearly failed in getting her baggage to the steamer in time.
The omnibus remained her chief association with London, for she decided
to take the first through train for Italy in the morning. She wished
to be settled, by which she meant placed in a Florentine hotel for
the winter. That lord, as she now began and always continued to call
Lioncourt, had first given her the name of the best little hotel in
Florence, but as it had neither elevator nor furnace heat in it, he
agreed in the end that it would not do for her, and mentioned the most
modern and expensive house on the Lungarno. He told her he did not
think she need telegraph for rooms; but she took this precaution before
leaving London, and was able to secure them at a price which seemed to
her quite as much as she would have had to pay for the same rooms at a
first class hotel on the Back Bay.
The manager had reserved for her one of the best suites, which ha
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