her fine new London
clothes.

Therefore she paused a little as she passed Miles, waiting for him to
doff his hat and bend his knee, and declare himself in all lowliness
her servant. But Miles had never a thought of doing this. Though he
was but newly turned Quaker, right well he remembered hearing George
Fox say--

'Moreover, when the Lord sent me forth into the world, He forbade me
to put off my hat to any--high or low--and I was required to "thee"
and "thou" all men and women, without any respect to rich or poor,
great or small. And as I travelled up and down, I was not to bid
people "Good-morrow," or "Good-evening," neither might I bow or scrape
with the leg to anyone, and this made the sects and the professors to
rage.'

Miles, too, having learnt this lesson and made it his own, passed by
the lady in all soberness and quietness, taking no more notice of her
than if she had been one of those dames painted on canvas by the late
King's painter, Sir Anthony Van Dyck, which, truth to tell, she
mightily resembled. The haughty fair one seeing this, as soon as he
had fully passed and she could no longer delude herself with the hope
that the longed-for salute was coming, was vastly and mightily
incensed. It was not her hat alone that was thistle colour then: her
face, her forehead, her neck all blazed and burned in one purple flush
of rage. Only her cheeks stayed a changeless crimson, and that for a
very excellent reason, easy to guess. Violently she turned herself to
a serving-man who was following in her train, following so humbly, and
being so much hidden by Madam's fallals and furbelows, that until that
moment Miles had not even seen that he was there.

'Back, sirrah!' she said in a loud, angry voice, speaking to the man
as if he had been a dog or a horse, 'back with thy staff and beat that
unmannerly knave till thou hast taught him 'twere well he should learn
to salute his betters.'

The servant was tired of following his lady like a lap-dog, and
attending to all her whims and whimsies. Scenting sport more nearly to
his liking, he obeyed, nothing loath. He fell upon Miles and beat him
lustily and stoutly, expecting every moment that he would resist or
beg for mercy.

Mistress Preston meanwhile, having turned full round, watched the
thwacking blows, and counted each one as it fell, with a smile of
pleasure. But her smile speedily became an angry frown, for Miles,
well knowing to whom his chastisement was due, p