tifiable
in whispering as the waggon stopped to bait at the "Nine Miles House,"
and they got out to bait also--

"What a pair!"

"Such a fright, the little fellow, Clary!"

"Such a goose, the tall fellow, Dulcie!"

It is a sad truth that foolish young women will judge by the exterior,
leap at conclusions, and be guilty of rude and cruel remarks.

What would come of it if the silly, sensitive hearts were in earnest, or
if they did not reserve to themselves the indefeasible right of changing
their opinions?

At the "Nine Miles House" the wayfarers rested, either in the sanded
parlour, or the common kitchen of the ale-house. Mistress Clarissa and
her party had the sanded parlour for themselves; the young men, with
their cramped legs, stumbled into the flitch-hung kitchen, the more
entertaining room of the two, and had plates of beans and bacon, a toast
and a tankard; for the day was in September, and the wind was already
bracing both to body and appetite. Mistress Clarissa carried her private
stores, and Cambridge laid out her slices of roasts and broils, plates
of buns and comforts, and cruets with white wines. But when did a
heroine remain in a sanded parlour in an inn, when she could stroll over
the country and lose her way, and get run at by wild cattle, and stared
at by naughty gentlemen? Clary was not so mean-spirited, though she was
physically lazier than Dulcie; she was eager to scamper across the
stubble fields (where Cambridge expected chickens to roam in flocks),
and to wander, book in hand, by yon brook with the bewitching pollards.

Dulcie could not accompany her. Dulcie being a practical woman, a needle
in innocent sharpness, had peeped about the waggon to inspect their
luggage, and had found to her horror that one of her boxes had burst its
fastenings--that very box with her respected mother's watered tabby, and
her one lace head on the place of honour on the top. So she and
Cambridge had an earnest consultation on the accident, which resulted in
their proceeding to tuck up their skirts, empty the receptacle with the
greatest care and tenderness, and repack it with such skill that a rope
would replace its rent hinges. Dulcie was not for walking.

Clarissa was thus forced to saunter alone, and after she had got to the
brook and the pollards, she sat down, and leant her arms on the bars of
an old farm gate. Soon tiring of looking about her, staring at the
minnows and the late orange coltsfoot and whit