ce at the items. Nay, when Moll presents
herself in her new equipment, he makes her a low reverence and pays her
a most handsome compliment, but in his serious humour and without a
smile. He himself wore a new suit all of black, not so fine as ours, but
very noble and becoming, by reason of his easy, graceful manner and his
majestic, high carriage.

On the last day of March we set forth for Toulouse. At our starting Don
Sanchez bade Moll ride by his side, and so we, not being bid, fell
behind; and, feeling awkward in our new clothes, we might very well have
been taken for their servants, or a pair of ill-bred friends at the
best, for our Moll carried herself not a whit less magnificent than the
Don, to the admiration of all who looked at her.

To see these grand airs of hers charmed Jack Dawson.

"You see, Kit," whispers he, "what an apt scholar the minx is, and what
an obedient, dutiful, good girl. One word from me is as good as six
months' schooling, for all this comes of that lecture I gave her the
last night we were at Edmonton."

I would not deny him the satisfaction of this belief, but I felt pretty
sure that had she been riding betwixt us in her old gown, instead of
beside the Don as his daughter, all her father's preaching would not
have stayed her from behaving herself like an orange wench.

We journey by easy stages ten days through Toulouse, on the road to
Perpignan, and being favoured with remarkably fine weather, a blue sky,
and a bright sun above us, and at every turn something strange or
beautiful to admire, no pleasure jaunt in the world could have been more
delightful. At every inn (which here they call hotels) we found good
beds, good food, excellent wine, and were treated like princes, so that
Dawson and I would gladly have given up our promise of a fortune to have
lived in this manner to the end of our days. But Don Sanchez professed
to hold all on this side of the Pyrenese Mountains in great contempt,
saying these hotels were as nothing to the Spanish posadas, that the
people here would rob you if they dared, whereas, on t'other side, not a
Spaniard would take so much as the hair of your horse's tail, though he
were at the last extremity, that the food was not fit for aught but a
Frenchman, and so forth. And our Moll, catching this humour, did also
turn up her nose at everything she was offered, and would send away a
bottle of wine from the table because 'twas not ripe enough, though but
a few