ronger than ever. A good reason why, you'll say, because more deserved
than ever. I thank you kindly for your correction. I hope to make
correction of it. But let me tell you, that your stripes, whether
deserved or not, have made me sensible, deeper than the skin--but of
this another time.

It was Monday afternoon before we reached the old lady's house. That
fiddling, parading fellow [you know who I mean] made us wait for him two
hours, and I to go to a journey I disliked! only for the sake of having
a little more tawdry upon his housings; which he had hurried his sadler
to put on, to make him look fine, being to escort his dear Madam Howe,
and her fair daughter. I told him, that I supposed he was afraid, that
the double solemnity in the case (that of the visit to a dying woman,
and that of his own countenance) would give him the appearance of an
undertaker; to avoid which, he ran into as bad an extreme, and I doubted
would be taken for a mountebank.

The man was confounded. He took it as strongly, as if his conscience
gave assent to the justice of the remark: otherwise he would have borne
it better; for he is used enough to this sort of treatment. I thought he
would have cried. I have heretofore observed, that on this side of the
contract, he seems to be a mighty meek sort of creature. And though I
should like it in him hereafter perhaps, yet I can't help despising him
a little in my heart for it now. I believe, my dear, we all love your
blustering fellows best; could we but direct the bluster, and bid it
roar when and at whom we pleased.

The poor man looked at my mother. She was so angry, (my airs upon it,
and my opposition to the journey, have all helped,) that for half the
way she would not speak to me. And when she did, it was, I wish I had
not brought you! You know not what it is to condescend. It is my fault,
not Mr. Hickman's, that you are here so much against your will. Have you
no eyes for this side of the chariot?

And then he fared the better from her, as he always does, for faring
worse from me: for there was, How do you now, Sir? And how do you now,
Mr. Hickman? as he ambled now on this side of the chariot, now on that,
stealing a prim look at me; her head half out of the chariot, kindly
smiling, as if married to the man but a fortnight herself: while I
always saw something to divert myself on the side of the chariot where
the honest man was not, were it but old Robin at a distance, on his roan
Keffel