The first who entered--nearly a minute before any of the rest--was certainly not the sort of being the persons assembled within expected to see, for the door only gave admission to a beautiful girl of some nineteen or twenty years of age, with her rich, clustering hair, wet with the rain, falling from its bands about her face and shoulders, and with a look of laughing, yet half-rueful, satisfaction on her face as she turned to one of those behind, saying in a sweet, though jesting tone, "Good faith, my friend, if thou art as wet as I am, the lowliness of the roof will not mar your joy in taking shelter under it." "Lord love you, sweet lady!" cried the hostess, advancing. "Well, you are wet indeed! What a night for such a beautiful lady as you to be out in. Why, all the rich velvet and the gold lace is spoiled. Heart of grace! and your yellow riding-coat is all draggled with mud above your knees!" "Ay! good truth," replied the lady, advancing toward the fire, "it is so, indeed, dame. Forty sterling marks cast away upon a miserable shower of rain, and a weary ride from Walden. But here seems the comfort of plentiful food, and a good fire to dry one." "Oh, yes, lady; oh, yes," replied the hostess, "everything is quite ready; let me take out that buckle, lady.--Get you home to your beds, fellows! what do you stand staring at there, as if you never saw a young gentlewoman before?--It's all because you're so beautiful, ma'am, that puts them out of their manners. 'Tisn't every day they see a skin like that, I trow." The lady tossed her head with a gay laugh. "I thought such words were the coin of courts," she said, "not current in the country; but I am overburdened with such small change, good dame, so tell me no more of my beauty, and do not drive these good people from the fire, where they have as much right as I have. Now, Maltby and Adams, bring in all the bags here, or they will soon be as wet as we are; and do not let the girl Marian stay out there all night to look after goods and chattels which will not melt as easily as herself, I warrant. We must stay here this night, that's clear. Why, what's the matter, Marian: you seemed scared?" The girl whom she addressed, and who was evidently the maid of a person of quality, ran up to her mistress with somewhat frightened and mysterious looks, whispering something in her ear; while the hostess, on the other side, assailed her with assurances that everything was quite right and prepared "for her bedchamber, and guest-chamber, and all," muttering between whiles to herself, "Stay here?--To be sure! Marry, when all is made ready, why should she not?" The lady might be somewhat embarrassed by the discourses of the two who addressed her at once; but, nevertheless, she seemed to catch the words of each, and replied to both.