es of pollard willows, the sails of invisible boats
moving on invisible waters. All the strange and startling anomalies
presented by an inland agricultural district, isolated from
other districts by its intricate surrounding network of pools and
streams--holding its communications and carrying its produce by water
instead of by land--began to present themselves in closer and closer
succession. Nets appeared on cottage pailings; little flat-bottomed
boats lay strangely at rest among the flowers in cottage gardens;
farmers' men passed to and fro clad in composite costume of the coast
and the field, in sailors' hats, and fishermen's boots, and plowmen's
smocks; and even yet the low-lying labyrinth of waters, embosomed in its
mystery of solitude, was a hidden labyrinth still. A minute more, and
the carriages took a sudden turn from the hard high-road into a little
weedy lane. The wheels ran noiseless on the damp and spongy ground. A
lonely outlying cottage appeared with its litter of nets and boats. A
few yards further on, and the last morsel of firm earth suddenly ended
in a tiny creek and quay. One turn more to the end of the quay--and
there, spreading its great sheet of water, far and bright and smooth,
on the right hand and the left--there, as pure in its spotless blue, as
still in its heavenly peacefulness, as the summer sky above it, was the
first of the Norfolk Broads.

The carriages stopped, the love-making broke off, and the venerable Mrs.
Pentecost, recovering the use of her senses at a moment's notice, fixed
her eyes sternly on Allan the instant she woke.

"I see in your face, Mr. Armadale," said the old lady, sharply, "that
you think I have been asleep."

The consciousness of guilt acts differently on the two sexes. In nine
cases out of ten, it is a much more manageable consciousness with a
woman than with a man. All the confusion, on this occasion, was on
the man's side. While Allan reddened and looked embarrassed, the
quick-witted Miss Milroy instantly embraced the old lady with a burst
of innocent laughter. "He is quite incapable, dear Mrs. Pentecost," said
the little hypocrite, "of anything so ridiculous as thinking you have
been asleep!"

"All I wish Mr. Armadale to know," pursued the old lady, still
suspicious of Allan, "is, that my head being giddy, I am obliged to
close my eyes in a carriage. Closing the eyes, Mr. Armadale, is one
thing, and going to sleep is another. Where is my son?"

The Reveren