and making a rush for the
front door of the hotel, which was right ahead of me; and then I
thought, as now I was in for it, it would be a lot better to put a good
face on the matter, and not look as if I had done anything I was
ashamed of, and so I just slackened speed and came up in fine style at
the door of the Old Hall. Four or five of the bath-chair men came
running across the street to know if anything had happened to the old
party I was pulling, and he got out looking as ashamed as if he had
been whipped by his wife.

"It's a lark, mates," said he; "the lady's to pay me two shillings
extra for letting her pull me."

"Two shillings?" said I. "I only promised you one."

"That would be for pulling me a little way," he said; "but you pulled
me all the way back, and I couldn't do it for less than two shillings."

Jone now came up and got out quick.

"What's the meaning of all this, Pomona?" said he.

"Meaning?" said I. "Look at that dilapidated old bag of bones. He
wasn't fit to pull me, and so I thought it would be fun to pull him;
but, of course, I didn't know when I turned the corner I would be here
at the stand."

Jone paid the men, including the two extra shillings, and when we went
up to our room he said, "The next time we go out in two bath-chairs, I
am going to have a chain fastened to yours, and I'll have hold of the
other end of it."

_Letter Number Eighteen_

BUXTON

I have begun to take the baths. There really is so little to do in this
place that I couldn't help it, and so, while Jone was off tending to
his hot soaks, I thought I might as well try the thing myself. At any
rate it would fill up the time when I was alone. I find I like this
sort of bathing very much, and I wish I had begun it before. It reminds
me of a kind of medicine for colds that you used to make for me, madam,
when I first came to the canal-boat. It had lemons and sugar in it, and
it was so good I remember I used to think that I would like to go into
a lingering consumption, so that I could have it three times a day,
until I finally passed away like a lily on a snowbank.

Jone's been going about a good deal in a bath-chair, and doesn't mind
my walking alongside of him. He says it makes him feel easier in his
mind, on the whole.

Mr. Poplington came two or three days ago, and he is stopping at our
hotel. We three have hired a carriage together two or three times and
have taken drives into, the country. Once we we