Dr Wainwright's patient Author:Edmund Hodgson Yates Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. ANOTHER CONQUEST. Town was at its dreariest; the little people in Camden-town and Hackney had followed the great people in Belgravia and Tybur... more »nia, by going away; only they went to Southend or Margate instead of Scotland or Biarritz. It was the last possible time of the year at which one would imagine festivity could take place; and yet from the aspect of No. 20 Adalbert-crescent, Navarino-road, Dal- ston, it was evident that festivity was intended. The general servant of the establishment had washed the upper half of her face, and hooked the lower half of her gown—an extraordinary occurrence, which meant something. The fishmonger had sent in a lobster, and half a newspaper—folded in cornucopia fashion—full of shrimps; the a-la-mode-beef house had been ransacked for the least-stony piece of cold meat which it possessed; and from the greengrocer had been obtained a perfect grove of salad and cress. Looking at these preparations, Miss Augusta Manby might well feel within herself a certain sentiment of pride, and a consciousness that Adalbert-crescent was equal to the occasion. Miss Augusta Manby had been a workwoman at Madame Clarisse's; but she had long left that patrician establishment, and started on her own account. The name of her late employer figured under her own on the brass plate which adorned her door; and this recommendation, and her own talent in reducing bulging waists, and " fitting" generally obstinate figures, had procured for her a vast amount of patronage in the clerk-inhabited district where she had pitched her tent. In the fulness of delight at her success, Miss Manby had taken advantage of the occasion of her birthday to summon her friends to rejoice with her at a little festive gathering, and the advent of those friends she was then awa...« less