It was said that Lady Bell had gone up secretly to London, to see about getting a King’s patent for conferring a peerage on Squire Trevor, because she, a peer’s daughter, could not brook the descent involved in her being married to a simple commoner. On the other hand, it was whispered that Squire Trevor was so displeased with his wife, because she had lost him Goodman Rickards’s vote, which Madam Sundon had beguiled from Rickards, by presenting all the women of the Rickardses with feather tippets, while Lady Bell had only gone the length of bestowing cloth spencers; that Squire Trevor had determined, without delay, on parting from Lady Bell. As she had no private fortune, or even pin-money, he had whipped her off to France, with the view of confining her in a convent for the rest of her life. There were other individuals besides Mr. Trevor in Peasmarsh, who were behind the curtain; but who, however anxious and full of pity, were reduced to listening to these absurd stories, and to doing nothing beyond contributing one or two opposite and enigmatical advertisements which were inserted, at this date, in the Peasmarsh _Chronicle_. The first was a bounce, and ran as follows: “Information is demanded immediately by the lawful guardian, with respect to the minor who has broken bounds and is in hiding, whose hiding-place will be tracked without fail, and to whom it will be worse in the end if immediate satisfaction is not granted.” The second entreated thus: “The deeply indebted friends of an innocent sufferer, beseech that sufferer to afford them the opportunity which is ardently desired to relieve undeserved misfortunes.” CHAPTER XIV. ROYALTY AGAIN. Arrived at the next market town to Peasmarsh, Lady Bell’s driver took her into the lamp-lit inn-yard; and when she pressed a recompense upon him, looked doubtfully at it, and then, as if he would do more to deserve it, hailed a sleepy chambermaid. “Here, Dolly, here be a poor madam who has missed the coach, or summat, and I ha’ given her a lift. She be skeared and knocked up. Do you put her up at a reasonable charge, and see her on her way in the morning.” The woman undertook to lead the stranger to a bedroom immediately, and good-naturedly promised to bring her bread and cheese, and what was left of the hot cyder, before she herself retired for the night. In passing across the never dark or quiet yard, which was surrounded by an old-fashioned brown gallery, forming an outside passage from room to room on the second floor of the inn, Lady Bell could see the landlord standing, candlestick in hand, in the gallery, exchanging a parting word with one of his guests. She could hear the words, “There is no lady or gentleman wanting to go to Thorpe, who will pay for the spare seat in the chaise with you and your wife. There is no help for it, since you say you must get on; but, as you complain, sir, it will come plaguey expensive.”