She waited on several other tables, for
the house was full of lodgers, all rather less permanent than
ourselves, who were there for a fortnight; we found our
landladies hoping, when we said we were going, to have had us
with them through the winter.
II
Our fellow-lodgers were quiet people of divers degrees, except
perhaps the highest, unless the nobility bring boiled hams with
them when they visit the seaside. The boiled ham of the drawing-
room floor was frankly set out on the hall table, where it seemed
to last a week, or at least till the lodgers went away. There was
much coming and going, for it was the height of the season, with
the prices at flood tide. We paid six guineas a week for three
bedrooms and a sitting-room; but our landladies owned it was
dear. An infirm and superannuated sideboard served for a
dressing-table in one room; in others the heavier pieces of
furniture stood sometimes on four legs, sometimes on three. We
had the advantage of two cats on the back fence, and a dog in the
back yard; but if the controversy between them was carried on in
Welsh, it is no wonder we never knew what it was about.
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