ohn Browdie--for he it was--opened the coach-door, and
tapping Mrs Browdie, late Miss Price, on the cheek as he looked in,
burst into a boisterous fit of laughter.

'Weel!' said John. 'Dang my bootuns if she bean't asleep agean!'

'She's been asleep all night, and was, all yesterday, except for a
minute or two now and then,' replied John Browdie's choice, 'and I was
very sorry when she woke, for she has been SO cross!'

The subject of these remarks was a slumbering figure, so muffled in
shawl and cloak, that it would have been matter of impossibility to
guess at its sex but for a brown beaver bonnet and green veil which
ornamented the head, and which, having been crushed and flattened, for
two hundred and fifty miles, in that particular angle of the vehicle
from which the lady's snores now proceeded, presented an appearance
sufficiently ludicrous to have moved less risible muscles than those of
John Browdie's ruddy face.

'Hollo!' cried John, twitching one end of the dragged veil. 'Coom,
wakken oop, will 'ee?'

After several burrowings into the old corner, and many exclamations of
impatience and fatigue, the figure struggled into a sitting posture; and
there, under a mass of crumpled beaver, and surrounded by a semicircle
of blue curl-papers, were the delicate features of Miss Fanny Squeers.

'Oh, 'Tilda!' cried Miss Squeers, 'how you have been kicking of me
through this blessed night!'

'Well, I do like that,' replied her friend, laughing, 'when you have had
nearly the whole coach to yourself.'

'Don't deny it, 'Tilda,' said Miss Squeers, impressively, 'because you
have, and it's no use to go attempting to say you haven't. You mightn't
have known it in your sleep, 'Tilda, but I haven't closed my eyes for a
single wink, and so I THINK I am to be believed.'

With which reply, Miss Squeers adjusted the bonnet and veil, which
nothing but supernatural interference and an utter suspension of
nature's laws could have reduced to any shape or form; and evidently
flattering herself that it looked uncommonly neat, brushed off the
sandwich-crumbs and bits of biscuit which had accumulated in her lap,
and availing herself of John Browdie's proffered arm, descended from the
coach.

'Noo,' said John, when a hackney coach had been called, and the ladies
and the luggage hurried in, 'gang to the Sarah's Head, mun.'

'To the VERE?' cried the coachman.

'Lawk, Mr Browdie!' interrupted Miss Squeers. 'The idea! Saracen's
Head.