On the whole the party came back cheerful, yet hungry. They
found the same old men, in the same costume, standing against
the porch.
"A little seedy, I should say," said Solomon John.
"Smoking pipes," said Agamemnon; "I believe that is the latest
style."
"The smell of their tobacco is not very agreeable," Mrs. Peterkin
was forced to say.
There seemed the same uncertainty on their arrival as to where
they were to be put, and as to their meals.
Elizabeth Eliza tried to get into conversation with the old ladies,
who were wandering in and out of a small sitting-room. But one
of them was very deaf, and the other seemed to be a foreigner.
She discovered from a moderately tidy maid, by the name of
Martha, who seemed a sort of factotum, that there were other
ladies in their rooms, too much of invalids to appear.
"Regular bed-ridden," Martha had described them, which
Elizabeth Eliza did not consider respectful.
Mr. Peterkin appeared coming down the slope of the hill behind
the house, very cheerful. He had made the tour of the farm, and
found it in admirable order.
Elizabeth Eliza felt it time to ask Martha about the next meal, and
ventured to call it supper, as a sort of compromise between dinner
and tea. If dinner were expected she might offend by taking it for
granted that it was to be "tea," and if they were unused to a late
dinner they might be disturbed if they had only provided a "tea.
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