Besides these,
there were the young ladies' father, and the young ladies' brother; the
first engaged in mercantile affairs; the second, a student at college;
both, in a certain cordiality of manner, like his own friend, and not
unlike him in face. Which was no great wonder, for it soon appeared that
he was their near relation. Martin could not help tracing the family
pedigree from the two young ladies, because they were foremost in his
thoughts; not only from being, as aforesaid, very pretty, but by reason
of their wearing miraculously small shoes, and the thinnest possible
silk stockings; the which their rocking-chairs developed to a
distracting extent.
There is no doubt that it was a monstrous comfortable circumstance to be
sitting in a snug, well-furnished room, warmed by a cheerful fire, and
full of various pleasant decorations, including four small shoes, and
the like amount of silk stockings, and--yes, why not?--the feet and
legs therein enshrined. And there is no doubt that Martin was monstrous
well-disposed to regard his position in that light, after his recent
experience of the Screw, and of Mrs Pawkins's boarding-house.
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