"Occasional passengers there are, however, gentle and simple. My friend, Mr B., for instance, has just cantered past on his blood-horse, with a nod and a smile, saying nothing, but apparently a good deal amused with my arrangements. And here comes a procession of cows going to milking, with an old attendant, still called the cow-boy, who, although they have seen me often enough, one should think, sitting underneath a tree writing, with my little maid close by hemming flounces, and my dog, Fanchon, nestled at my feet--still _will_ start as if they had never seen a woman before in their lives. Back they start, and then they rush forward, and then the old drover emits certain sounds, which it is to be presumed the cows understand; sounds so horribly discordant that little Fanchon--although to her too they ought to be familiar, if not comprehensible--starts up in a fright on her feet, deranging all the economy of my extempore desk, and wellnigh upsetting the inkstand. Very much frightened is my pretty pet, the arrantest coward that ever walked upon four legs! And so she avenges herself, as cowards are wont to do, by following the cows at safe distance, as soon as they are fairly past, and beginning to bark amain when they axe nearly out of sight. Then follows a motley group of the same nature--colts, yearlings, calves, heifers, with a shouting boy, and his poor shabby mongrel cur, for driver. The poor cur wants to play with Fanchon, but Fanchon, besides being a coward, is also a beauty, and holds her state; although I think, if he could but stay long enough, that the good-humour of the poor merry creature would prove infectious, and beguile the little lady into a game of romps. Lastly appears the most solemn troop of all, a grave company of geese and goslings, with the gander at their head, marching with the decorum and dignity proper to the birds who saved Rome. Fanchon, who once had an affair with a gander, in which she was notably worsted, retreats out of sight, and ensconces herself between me and the tree. "Such are our passers-by. Sometimes we have what I was about to call settled inhabitants, in the shape of a camp of gipsies." After describing this camp of gipsies, and how the men carry on a sort of "trade in forest ponies," and how the women make and sell baskets "at about double the price at which they might be bought at the dearest shop in the good town of Belford Regis," she proceeds to tell us how, notwithstanding her perfect knowledge of this fact, she is induced to become a purchaser.