top to the bottom button which prevails among men who
have to do with horses. He was sweeping straws from the carriage-way
beneath the stone arch that formed a passage to the stables behind.

'Never mind the cursing and swearing, or somebody who's never out of
hearing may clap yer name down in his black book,' said the hostler, also
pausing, and lifting his eyes to the mullioned and transomed windows and
moulded parapet above him--not to study them as features of ancient
architecture, but just to give as healthful a stretch to the eyes as his
acquaintance had done to his back. 'Michael, a old man like you ought to
think about other things, and not be looking two ways at your time of
life. Pouncing upon young flesh like a carrion crow--'tis a vile thing
in a old man.'

''Tis; and yet 'tis not, for 'tis a naterel taste,' said the milkman,
again surveying Ethelberta, who had now paused upon a bridge in full
view, to look down the river. 'Now, if a poor needy feller like myself
could only catch her alone when she's dressed up to the nines for some
grand party, and carry her off to some lonely place--sakes, what a pot of
jewels and goold things I warrant he'd find about her! 'Twould pay en
for his trouble.'

'I don't dispute the picter; but 'tis sly and untimely to think such
roguery. Though I've had thoughts like it, 'tis true, about high
women--Lord forgive me for't.'

'And that figure of fashion standing there is a widow woman, so I hear?'

'Lady--not a penny less than lady. Ay, a thing of twenty-one or
thereabouts.'

'A widow lady and twenty-one. 'Tis a backward age for a body who's so
forward in her state of life.'

'Well, be that as 'twill, here's my showings for her age. She was about
the figure of two or three-and-twenty when a' got off the carriage last
night, tired out wi' boaming about the country; and nineteen this morning
when she came downstairs after a sleep round the clock and a clane-washed
face: so I thought to myself, twenty-one, I thought.'

'And what's the young woman's name, make so bold, hostler?'

'Ay, and the house were all in a stoor with her and the old woman, and
their boxes and camp-kettles, that they carry to wash in because hand-
basons bain't big enough, and I don't know what all; and t'other folk
stopping here were no more than dirt thencefor'ard.'

'I suppose they've come out of some noble city a long way herefrom?'

'And there was her hair up in buckle as if she'd never