Hewletts prey on her," said Mary.

"And patronising her will prove a complicated affair!" said the captain.

He wanted them to come home at once, but on the way they met Nanny
Barton, who began, with low curtsies, a lamentable story about her girls
having no clothes, and she would certainly have extracted a shilling
from Miss Carbonel if the captain had not been there.

"Never accept stories told on the spur of the moment," he said.

Then Betsy Seddon and Tirzah Todd came along together, bending under
heavy loads of broken branches for their fires. Tirzah smiled as usual,
and showed her pretty teeth, but the captain looked after her, and said,
"They have been tearing Mr Selby's woods to pieces."

"What can they do for firewood?" said his wife.

"Let us look out the rules of your father's coal store and shoe club,"
he said.

CHAPTER SIX.

THE NEIGHBOURHOOD.

"Through slush and squad,
When roads was bad,
But hallus stop at the Vine and Hop."
_Tennyson_.

Through all Pucklechurch's objections and evident contempt for his
fancies, and those of young madam, Captain Carbonel insisted on the
clearance of the yard. He could not agree with the old man, who made
free to tell him that, "Such as that there muck-heap was just a bucket
to a farmer's wife, if she was to be called a farmer's wife--was that
it."

With some reflection, Captain Carbonel decided that a bucket might mean
a bouquet, and answered, "Maybe she might have too much of a good thing.
When I went down to Farmer Bell's the other day, they had a famous
heap, and I was struck with the sickly look of his wife and daughters."

"His missus were always a poor, nesh 'ooman," returned Pucklechurch.

"And I don't mean mine to be like her if I can help it," said the
captain.

But he did not reckon on the arrival of a prancing pair of horses, with
a smart open carriage, containing two ladies and a gentleman, in the
most odorous part of the proceedings, when he was obliged to clear the
way from a half-loaded waggon to make room for them, and, what was quite
as inconvenient, to hurry up the back stairs to his dressing-room to
take off his long gaiters, Blucher boots (as half high ones were then
called) and old shooting coat, and make himself presentable.

In fact, when he came into the room, Dora was amused at the perceptible
look of surprised approval of the fine tall soldierly figure, as he
advanced to meet Mr and Mrs Selby and their daughter,