tain Loveday's brother. Dear Bob has mentioned him.'

'If you come round to Widow Garland's side of the house, you can see the
camp,' said the miller.

'Don't force her; she's tired with her long journey,' said Mrs. Garland
humanely, the widow having come out in the general wish to see Captain
Bob's choice. Indeed, they all behaved towards her as if she were a
tender exotic, which their crude country manners might seriously injure.

She went into the house, accompanied by Mrs. Garland and her daughter;
though before leaving Bob she managed to whisper in his ear, 'Don't tell
them I came by waggon, will you, dear?'--a request which was quite
needless, for Bob had long ago determined to keep that a dead secret; not
because it was an uncommon mode of travel, but simply that it was hardly
the usual conveyance for a gorgeous lady to her bridal.

As the men had a feeling that they would be superfluous indoors just at
present, the miller assisted David in taking the horse round to the
stables, Bob following, and leaving Matilda to the women. Indoors, Miss
Johnson admired everything: the new parrots and marmosets, the black
beams of the ceiling, the double-corner cupboard with the glass doors,
through which gleamed the remainders of sundry china sets acquired by
Bob's mother in her housekeeping--two-handled sugar-basins, no-handled
tea-cups, a tea-pot like a pagoda, and a cream-jug in the form of a
spotted cow. This sociability in their visitor was returned by Mrs.
Garland and Anne; and Miss Johnson's pleasing habit of partly dying
whenever she heard any unusual bark or bellow added to her piquancy in
their eyes. But conversation, as such, was naturally at first of a
nervous, tentative kind, in which, as in the works of some minor poets,
the sense was considerably led by the sound.

'You get the sea-breezes here, no doubt?'

'O yes, dear; when the wind is that way.'

'Do you like windy weather?'

'Yes; though not now, for it blows down the young apples.'

'Apples are plentiful, it seems. You country-folk call St. Swithin's
their christening day, if it rains?'

'Yes, dear. Ah me! I have not been to a christening for these many
years; the baby's name was George, I remember--after the King.'

'I hear that King George is still staying at the town here. I _hope_
he'll stay till I have seen him!'

'He'll wait till the corn turns yellow; he always does.'

'How _very_ fashionable yellow is getting for gloves just n