"Hey!" cried the lady of the caravan, scooping the crumbs out of her lap and swallowing the same before wiping her lips. "Yes, to be sure------Who won the Helter-Skelter Plate, child?" "Won what, ma'am?" asked Nell. "The Helter-Skelter Plate at the races, child--the plate that was run for on the second day." "On the second day, ma'am?" "Second day! Yes, second day," repeated the lady, with an air of impatience. "Can't you say who won the Helter-Skelter Plate when you're asked the question civilly?" "I don't know, ma'am." "Don't know!" repeated the lady of the caravan; "why, you were there. I saw you with my own eyes." Nell was not a little alarmed to hear this, supposing that the lady might be intimately acquainted with the firm of Short and Codlin; but what followed tended to put her at her ease. "And very sorry I was," said the lady of the caravan, "to see you in company with a Punch--a low, common, vulgar wretch, that people should scorn to look at." "I was not there by choice," returned the child; "we didn't know our way, and the two men were very kind to us, and let us travel with them. Do you--do you know them, ma'am?" "Know 'em, child?" cried the lady of the caravan, in a sort of shriek. "Know _them_! But you're young and ignorant, and that's your excuse for asking sich a question. Do I look as if I know'd 'em? does the caravan look as if _it_ know'd 'em?" "No, ma'am, no," said the child, fearing she had committed some grievous fault. "I beg your pardon." The lady of the caravan was in the act of gathering her tea things together preparing to clear the table, but noting the child's anxious manner, she hesitated and stopped. The child courtesied, and, giving her hand to the old man, had already got some fifty yards or so away, when the lady of the caravan called to her to return. "Come nearer, nearer still," said she, beckoning to her to ascend the steps. "Are you hungry, child?" "Not very, but we are tired, and it's--it _is_ a long way------" "Well, hungry or not, you had better have some tea," rejoined her new acquaintance. "I suppose you are agreeable to that old gentleman?" The grandfather humbly pulled off his hat and thanked her. The lady of the caravan then bade him come up the steps likewise, but the drum proving an inconvenient table for two, they went down again, and sat upon the grass, where she handed down to them the tea-tray, the bread and butter, and the knuckle of ham. "Set 'em out near the hind wheels child, that's the best place," said their friend, superintending the arrangement from above. "Now hand up the tea-pot for a little more hot water and a pinch of fresh tea, and then both of you eat and drink as much as you can, and don't spare anything; that's all I ask of you." The mistress of the caravan, saying the girl and her grandfather could not be very heavy, invited them to go along with them for a while, for which Nell thanked her with all her heart.