ear this, supposing that the lady
might be intimately acquainted with the firm of Short and Codlin; but
what followed tended to put her at her ease.

"And very sorry I was," said the lady of the caravan, "to see you in
company with a Punch--a low, common, vulgar wretch, that people should
scorn to look at."

"I was not there by choice," returned the child; "we didn't know our
way, and the two men were very kind to us, and let us travel with them.
Do you--do you know them, ma'am?"

"Know 'em, child?" cried the lady of the caravan, in a sort of shriek.
"Know _them_! But you're young and ignorant, and that's your excuse for
asking sich a question. Do I look as if I know'd 'em? does the caravan
look as if _it_ know'd 'em?"

"No, ma'am, no," said the child, fearing she had committed some grievous
fault. "I beg your pardon."

The lady of the caravan was in the act of gathering her tea things
together preparing to clear the table, but noting the child's anxious
manner, she hesitated and stopped. The child courtesied, and, giving her
hand to the old man, had already got some fifty yards or so away, when
the lady of the caravan called to her to return.

"Come nearer, nearer still," said she, beckoning to her to ascend the
steps. "Are you hungry, child?"

"Not very, but we are tired, and it's--it _is_ a long way------"

"Well, hungry or not, you had better have some tea," rejoined her new
acquaintance. "I suppose you are agreeable to that old gentleman?"

The grandfather humbly pulled off his hat and thanked her. The lady of
the caravan then bade him come up the steps likewise, but the drum
proving an inconvenient table for two, they went down again, and sat
upon the grass, where she handed down to them the tea-tray, the bread
and butter, and the knuckle of ham.

"Set 'em out near the hind wheels child, that's the best place," said
their friend, superintending the arrangement from above. "Now hand up
the tea-pot for a little more hot water and a pinch of fresh tea, and
then both of you eat and drink as much as you can, and don't spare
anything; that's all I ask of you."

The mistress of the caravan, saying the girl and her grandfather could
not be very heavy, invited them to go along with them for a while, for
which Nell thanked her with all her heart.

When they had traveled slowly forward for some short distance, Nell
ventured to steal a look round the caravan and observe it more closely.
One-half of it--that par