ellow cried and blubbered so that he could not eat a morsel of the
muffins and grilled ham with which I treated him for breakfast in the
"Bolt-in-Tun" coffee-house; and when I went away was waving his hat and
his handkerchief so in the archway of the coach-office that I do believe
the wheels of the "True Blue" went over his toes, for I heard him roaring
as we passed through the arch. Ah! how different were my feelings as I
sat proudly there on the box by the side of Jim Ward, the coachman, to
those I had the last time I mounted that coach, parting from my dear Mary
and coming to London with my DIAMOND PIN!

When arrived near home (at Grumpley, three miles from our village, where
the "True Blue" generally stops to take a glass of ale at the Poppleton
Arms) it was as if our Member, Mr. Poppleton himself, was come into the
country, so great was the concourse of people assembled round the inn.
And there was the landlord of the inn and all the people of the village.
Then there was Tom Wheeler, the post-boy, from Mrs. Rincer's
posting-hotel in our town; he was riding on the old bay posters, and
they, Heaven bless us! were drawing my aunt's yellow chariot, in which
she never went out but thrice in a year, and in which she now sat in her
splendid cashmere shawl and a new hat and feather. She waved a white
handkerchief out of the window, and Tom Wheeler shouted out "Huzza!" as
did a number of the little blackguard boys of Grumpley: who, to be sure,
would huzza for anything. What a change on Tom Wheeler's part, however!
I remembered only a few years before how he had whipped me from the box
of the chaise, as I was hanging on for a ride behind.

Next to my aunt's carriage came the four-wheeled chaise of Lieutenant
Smith, R.N., who was driving his old fat pony with his lady by his side.
I looked in the back seat of the chaise, and felt a little sad at seeing
that _Somebody_ was not there. But, O silly fellow! there was Somebody
in the yellow chariot with my aunt, blushing like a peony, I declare, and
looking so happy!--oh, so happy and pretty! She had a white dress, and a
light blue and yellow scarf, which my aunt said were the Hoggarty
colours; though what the Hoggartys had to do with light blue and yellow,
I don't know to this day.

Well, the "True Blue" guard made a great bellowing on his horn as his
four horses dashed away; the boys shouted again; I was placed bodkin
between Mrs. Hoggarty and Mary; Tom Wheeler cut into hi