She and Margaret walked side by side, at a quick pace, talking together
about poor Phoebe. Just as she was approaching the extremity of the
village, nearest the park--

"Ah! my lovely gals!" exclaimed a voice, in a low but most offensive
tone--"alone? How uncommon"--Miss Aubrey for a moment seemed
thunderstruck at so sudden and unprecedented an occurrence: then she
hurried on with a beating heart, whispering to Margaret to keep close to
her, and not to be alarmed. The speaker, however, kept pace with them.

"Lovely gals!--wish I'd an umbrella, my angels!--Take my arm? Ah! Pretty
gals!"

"Who _are_ you, sir?" at length exclaimed Kate, spiritedly, suddenly
stopping, and turning to the rude speaker.

[Who else should it be but Tittlebat Titmouse!] "Who am I? Ah, ha!
Lovely gals! one that loves the pretty gals!"

"Do you know, fellow, who I am?" inquired Miss Aubrey, indignantly,
flinging aside her veil, and disclosing her beautiful face, white as
death, but indistinctly visible in the darkness, to her insolent
assailant.

"No, 'pon my soul, no; but lovely gal! lovely gal!--'pon my life,
spirited gal!--do you no harm! Take my arm?"----

"Wretch! ruffian! How dare you insult a lady in this manner? Do you know
who I am? My name, sir, is Aubrey--I am Miss Aubrey of the Hall! Do not
think"----

Titmouse felt as if he were on the point of dropping down dead at that
moment, with amazement and terror; and when Miss Aubrey's servant
screamed out at the top of her voice, "Help!--help, there!" Titmouse,
without uttering a syllable more, took to his heels, just as the door of
a cottage, at only a few yards' distance, opened, and out rushed a
strapping farmer, shouting--"Hey! what be t' matter?" You may guess his
amazement on discovering Miss Aubrey, and his fury at learning the cause
of her alarm. Out of doors he pelted, without his hat, uttering a volley
of fearful imprecations, and calling on the unseen miscreant to come
forward; for whom it was lucky that he had time to escape from a pair of
fists that in a minute or two would have beaten his little carcass into
a jelly! Miss Aubrey was so overcome by the shock she had suffered, that
but for a glass of water she might have fainted. As soon as she had a
little recovered from her agitation, she set off home, accompanied by
Margaret, and followed very closely by the farmer, with a tremendous
knotted stick under his arm--(he wanted to have taken his
double-barrelled gun)--an