ike that of a kiln. The body of farmers who still
sat on there was greater than usual, owing to the cold air without, the
tables having been cleared of dinner for some time and their surface
stamped with liquid circles by the feet of the numerous glasses.

Besides the farmers there were present several professional men of
the town, who found it desirable to dine here on market-days for the
opportunity it afforded them of increasing their practice among the
agriculturists, many of whom were men of large balances, even luxurious
livers, who drove to market in elegant phaetons drawn by horses of
supreme blood, bone, and action, in a style never anticipated by their
fathers when jogging thither in light carts, or afoot with a butter
basket on each arm.

The buzz of groggy conversation was suddenly impinged on by the notes of
a peal of bells from the tower hard by. Almost at the same instant the
door of the room opened, and there entered the landlord of the little
inn at Sleeping-Green. Drawing his supply of cordials from this superior
house, to which he was subject, he came here at stated times like a
prebendary to the cathedral of his diocesan, afterwards retailing to
his own humbler audience the sentiments which he had learnt of this. But
curiosity being awakened by the church bells the usual position was for
the moment reversed, and one of the farmers, saluting him by name, asked
him the reason of their striking up at that time of day.

'My mis'ess out yonder,' replied the rural landlord, nodding sideways,
'is coming home with her fancy-man. They have been a-gaying together
this turk of a while in foreign parts--Here, maid!--what with the wind,
and standing about, my blood's as low as water--bring us a thimbleful of
that that isn't gin and not far from it.'

'It is true, then, that she's become Mrs. Somerset?' indifferently asked
a farmer in broadcloth, tenant of an estate in quite another direction
than hers, as he contemplated the grain of the table immediately
surrounding the foot of his glass.

'True--of course it is,' said Havill, who was also present, in the tone
of one who, though sitting in this rubicund company, was not of it. 'I
could have told you the truth of it any day these last five weeks.'

Among those who had lent an ear was Dairyman Jinks, an old gnarled
character who wore a white fustian coat and yellow leggings; the only
man in the room who never dressed up in dark clothes for marketing. He
now