“I knows you bees a lady now. If you delights in licking o’ do’rrgs, ma’am, you ma’ thrash Bull as much as you please for sixpence a licking. That’s fair, I thinks.” He might as well have shouted to the winds; Miss Wilhelmina was out of hearing, and Flora and her husband pursued their walk to the hall. CHAPTER VIII. MISS WILHELMINA CALLS UPON FLORA. The breakfast things were scarcely removed the following morning, when Miss Carr walked into the room, where Flora was employed at her work-table, in manufacturing some small articles of dress. “Your husband is afraid of me, Mrs. Lyndsay: he started off the moment he saw me coming up to the door. I don’t want to banish him from his own house.” “Oh, not at all. He has business in town, Miss Carr. You have favoured me with a very early visit.” “Too early? Just speak the truth plainly out. Why the deuce do people tell so many stories, when it would be far easier to speak the truth? I assure you, that you look so neat and comfortable in your morning costume, that you have no reason to be ashamed. I like to come upon people unawares,—to see them as they really are. You are welcome to come and see me in my night-cap, when the spirit moves me. When I’m not out walking, I’m always at home. Busy at work, too?” she continued, putting a tiny cap upon her fist. “That looks droll, and tells tales.” “Oh, don’t!—do spare me,” cried Flora, snatching the article from her odd companion, and hiding it away in the table-drawer. “I did not mean that any one should catch me at this work.” “Don’t think, my dear, that I am going to criticise you. I am no judge of sewing,—never set a stitch in my life. It must be a dull way of spending time. Can’t you put your needle-work out?” Flora shook her head. “Too poor for that? Mrs. Turner’s daughter takes in all such gimcracks. Send what you’ve got over to her, and I’ll pay for the making.” “Miss Carr!” said Flora, greatly distressed. “What, angry again?” “No, not exactly angry; but you wound my pride.” “It would do you no harm to kill it outright,” said Miss Carr, laughing—such a loud, jovial peal of merriment, which rang so clearly from her healthy lungs, that Flora, in spite of her offended dignity, was forced to laugh too.