'

'Sure-ly,' said John, 'I know'd it was something aboot Sarah's Son's
Head. Dost thou know thot?'

'Oh, ah! I know that,' replied the coachman gruffly, as he banged the
door.

''Tilda, dear, really,' remonstrated Miss Squeers, 'we shall be taken
for I don't know what.'

'Let them tak' us as they foind us,' said John Browdie; 'we dean't come
to Lunnun to do nought but 'joy oursel, do we?'

'I hope not, Mr Browdie,' replied Miss Squeers, looking singularly
dismal.

'Well, then,' said John, 'it's no matther. I've only been a married man
fower days, 'account of poor old feyther deein, and puttin' it off. Here
be a weddin' party--broide and broide's-maid, and the groom--if a mun
dean't 'joy himsel noo, when ought he, hey? Drat it all, thot's what I
want to know.'

So, in order that he might begin to enjoy himself at once, and lose no
time, Mr Browdie gave his wife a hearty kiss, and succeeded in wresting
another from Miss Squeers, after a maidenly resistance of scratching and
struggling on the part of that young lady, which was not quite over when
they reached the Saracen's Head.

Here, the party straightway retired to rest; the refreshment of sleep
being necessary after so long a journey; and here they met again
about noon, to a substantial breakfast, spread by direction of Mr John
Browdie, in a small private room upstairs commanding an uninterrupted
view of the stables.

To have seen Miss Squeers now, divested of the brown beaver, the green
veil, and the blue curl-papers, and arrayed in all the virgin splendour
of a white frock and spencer, with a white muslin bonnet, and an
imitative damask rose in full bloom on the inside thereof--her luxuriant
crop of hair arranged in curls so tight that it was impossible they
could come out by any accident, and her bonnet-cap trimmed with little
damask roses, which might be supposed to be so many promising scions of
the big rose--to have seen all this, and to have seen the broad
damask belt, matching both the family rose and the little roses, which
encircled her slender waist, and by a happy ingenuity took off from the
shortness of the spencer behind,--to have beheld all this, and to have
taken further into account the coral bracelets (rather short of beads,
and with a very visible black string) which clasped her wrists, and the
coral necklace which rested on her neck, supporting, outside her frock,
a lonely cornelian heart, typical of her own disengaged affections--to
h