At length, having made herself look as decent as she could under the circumstances, and having been provided with a pair of list slippers at the expense of the Society, Aggy was ushered into the presence of the sharer of her sorrows and her “ducking;” and after many mutual congratulations on their lucky escape, and consolations under their afflictions, the melancholy Sandboys set out at dusk on their way back to the establishment of Mrs. Wewitz; and as they rode along in the cab, they did not forget to attribute the whole of their disasters to that wretch of a Frenchman. Before they reached “Parthenon House,” they had formed the conclusion that Fate had irrevocably forbid their ever seeing the Great Exhibition; and come what may, they were determined immediately to return to the peace and happiness of their native mountains of Buttermere. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XV. “The justice flung them beath in jail— My faith! what’s duin they’ll sair repent.” _Bad News._ ON reaching their temporary home, the Sandboys immediately made inquiries as to whether the French gentleman—M. Le Comte de Sanschemise—whose card Cursty had received that morning, and to whom he had given his season ticket for the Exhibition in exchange, had returned from the Crystal Palace. No tidings, however, were to be obtained of the gentleman, further than that he had been seen to leave the establishment shortly after themselves in the morning. Cursty, when he and his dear Aggy had partaken of some refreshment, proceeded to take up his residence in one of the rooms immediately adjoining the hall; and having provided himself with a thick ash stick, sat himself down to await the coming of the Comte; for the sturdy mountaineer had made up his mind to have satisfaction for the injuries of himself and his wife in a very different way from what the Frenchman demanded or expected. Aggy, too, who did not fail to attribute her dip in the Serpentine, and the consequent destruction of her best white chip bonnet and Sunday front, solely to the abstraction of her husband’s season ticket by M. le Comte de Sanschemise, was only too glad to wait with Cursty, in hopes of seeing “the wretch” severely punished for his dishonesty. But though the determined Mr. Christopher Sandboys sat in the waiting-room, with his thick ground-ash stick, till long past midnight, no M. Le Comte made his appearance; and when the want of sleep had got the better of the Cumberland man’s indignation, he began to think that he should have many future opportunities of making the Frenchman pay the penalty of his peccadilloes. Accordingly, when the exhausted couple heard the hall clock strike two, they considered it best to retire to rest, and see what luck the morrow would bring them.