Jinny was not edified by Mr. Flippance’s pretence that she—Jinny—was the sole ground for the visit. She had, he said, been driving him home from the market, where he had gone to dispose of a horse, and he had taken the liberty of bringing her to see their “wonderful” caravan, finding, to his amazement, that she had never been inside. For once the stock Essex epithet was justified—it was indeed a “wonderful” caravan, and the interior so took up her attention that for some time she failed to follow the conversation, though she had a dim uneasy sense that it continued—as it began—with scant regard to the ethics of the Spelling-Book. The gay paint and the neat lace curtains had prepared her for an elegance, and even an airiness, that were not to be found within the caravan. But little else seemed lacking. For into this cramped wheeled chamber, looking scarce larger than her own cart, and certainly not so large as Commander Dap’s cabin in the Watch Vessel, was packed not only a complete cottage with its parlour, living-room, bedroom, scullery, and kitchen, but the mantelpieces and chests of drawers were as crowded with china dogs and shepherdesses as Blackwater Hall itself, besides a wealth of pictures, objects of art, posters, and inhabited birdcages, to which Daniel Quarles’s domain could lay no claim. Not that there was really more than one undivided space, or that you could tell where one room ended and the other began. Nevertheless, all the different sections were clearly visible, though a square yard here or there did double or treble service, forming part of this or that room according as you looked at it. Most clearly marked, of course, was the bedroom, consisting of a raised, neatly counterpaned bed, like an upper berth in a ship, and a chest of drawers topped with ornaments, though the kitchen with its grate and oven and flap-table ran it close, in every sense of the phrase. Amid these poky surroundings, the Duchess’s blue eyes and golden hair shone so sunnily and veraciously—taken unawares as she seemed—that Jinny, ignorant she was expecting a visitor, felt that Mr. Flippance was as unjust of judgment as he was loose of statement.