looking woman, very hot of blood, I doubt, but not
altogether a bad one. And she waited for me to speak first, which an
Englishwoman would not have done.

'"Can I rest here for the night?" I asked, with a lift of my hat to her;
for she was no provincial dame, who would stare at me for the courtesy;
"my horse is weary from the sloughs, and myself but little better:
beside that, we both are famished."

'"Yes, sir, you can rest and welcome. But of food, I fear, there is but
little, unless of the common order. Our fishers would have drawn the
nets, but the waves were violent. However, we have--what you call it? I
never can remember, it is so hard to say--the flesh of the hog salted."

'"Bacon!" said I; "what can be better? And half dozen of eggs with it,
and a quart of fresh-drawn ale. You make me rage with hunger, madam. Is
it cruelty, or hospitality?"

'"Ah, good!" she replied, with a merry smile, full of southern sunshine:
"you are not of the men round here; you can think, and you can laugh!"

'"And most of all, I can eat, good madam. In that way I shall astonish
you; even more than by my intellect."

'She laughed aloud, and swung her shoulders, as your natives cannot do;
and then she called a little maid to lead my horse to stable. However,
I preferred to see that matter done myself, and told her to send the
little maid for the frying-pan and the egg-box.

'Whether it were my natural wit and elegance of manner; or whether it
were my London freedom and knowledge of the world; or (which is perhaps
the most probable, because the least pleasing supposition) my ready and
permanent appetite, and appreciation of garlic--I leave you to decide,
John: but perhaps all three combined to recommend me to the graces of my
charming hostess. When I say "charming," I mean of course by manners
and by intelligence, and most of all by cooking; for as regards external
charms (most fleeting and fallacious) hers had ceased to cause distress,
for I cannot say how many years. She said that it was the climate--for
even upon that subject she requested my opinion--and I answered, "if
there be a change, let madam blame the seasons."

'However, not to dwell too much upon our little pleasantries (for I
always get on with these foreign women better than with your Molls and
Pegs), I became, not inquisitive, but reasonably desirous to know, by
what strange hap or hazard, a clever and a handsome woman, as she must
have been some day, a woman moreo