Pearson
introduced his guest. The captain met Mrs. Hepton, the landlady, plump,
gray-haired, and graciously hospitable. She did not look at all like
a business woman, but appearances are not always to be trusted; Mrs.
Hepton had learned not to trust them--also delinquent boarders, too far.
He met Miss Sherborne, whose coiffure did not match in spots, but whose
voice, so he learned afterward, had been "cultivated abroad." Miss
Sherborne gave music lessons. Mrs. Van Winkle Ruggles also claimed his
attention and held it, principally because of the faded richness of her
apparel. Mrs. Ruggles was a widow, suffering from financial reverses;
the contrast between her present mode of living and the grandeur of the
past formed her principal topic of conversation.
There were half a dozen others, including an artist whose aversion to
barbers was proclaimed by the luxuriant length of his locks, a quiet old
gentleman who kept the second-hand book store two doors below; his wife,
a neat, trim little body; and Mr. and Mrs. C. Dickens, no less.
Mr. Dickens was bald, an affliction which he tried to conceal by
brushing the hair at the sides of his head across the desert at the
top. He shaved his cheeks and wore a beard and mustache. Mrs. Dickens
addressed him as "C.
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