was an anxious morning for them all, and the beauties
of the early summer day fell upon unheeding eyes. They were too anxious
even for conjecture, and each sat thinking her own thoughts, occasionally
glancing westward, or stopping the horse to listen to sounds from more
frequented roads along which other parties were retreating. Once, while
they listened and gazed thus, they saw a glittering in the distance, and
heard the tramp of many horses. It was a large body of cavalry going in
the direction of the King's watering-place, the same regiment of
dragoons, in fact, which Festus had seen further on in its course. The
women in the gig had no doubt that these men were marching at once to
engage the enemy. By way of varying the monotony of the journey Molly
occasionally burst into tears of horror, believing Buonaparte to be in
countenance and habits precisely what the caricatures represented him.
Mrs. Loveday endeavoured to establish cheerfulness by assuring her
companions of the natural civility of the French nation, with whom
unprotected women were safe from injury, unless through the casual
excesses of soldiery beyond control. This was poor consolation to Anne,
whose mind was more occupied with Bob than with herself, and a miserable
fear that she would never again see him alive so paled her face and
saddened her gaze forward, that at last her mother said, 'Who was you
thinking of, my dear?' Anne's only reply was a look at her mother, with
which a tear mingled.

Molly whipped the horse, by which she quickened his pace for five yards,
when he again fell into the perverse slowness that showed how fully
conscious he was of being the master-mind and chief personage of the
four. Whenever there was a pool of water by the road he turned aside to
drink a mouthful, and remained there his own time in spite of Molly's tug
at the reins and futile fly-flapping on his rump. They were now in the
chalk district, where there were no hedges, and a rough attempt at
mending the way had been made by throwing down huge lumps of that glaring
material in heaps, without troubling to spread it or break them abroad.
The jolting here was most distressing, and seemed about to snap the
springs.

'How that wheel do wamble,' said Molly at last. She had scarcely spoken
when the wheel came off, and all three were precipitated over it into the
road.

Fortunately the horse stood still, and they began to gather themselves
up. The only one of th