It was a place that
he--the hackman--always associated with his own mother, because he was
so familiar with it in childhood, and had often thought of driving to it
blindfolded for a wager.
Proud to learn that her guardian was so well known in the great city,
and delighted that she had met a charioteer so minutely familiar with
his house of business, FLORA stepped readily into the providential hack,
which thereupon instantly began Rocking-Chair-ing, Old-Shoe-ing, and
Gliding. Any one of these celebrated processes, by itself, might have
been desirable; but their indiscriminate and impetuous combination in
the present case gave the Flowerpot a confused impression that her whole
ride was a startling series of incessant sharp turns around obdurate
street corners, and kept her plunging about like an early young
Protestant tossed in a Romish blanket. Instinctively holding her satchel
aloft, to save its fragile contents from fracture, she rocked, shoed and
glided all over the interior of the vehicle, without hope of gaining
breath enough for even one scream, until, nearly unconscious, and, with
her bonnet driven half-way into her chignon, she was helped out by the
hackman at her guardian's door.
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