Excited by the change of scene, even by the mild motion of a post-chaise which exhilarated Dr. Johnson, and by her strange fellow-travellers, Lady Bell was continually drawn from her cogitations. She would wonder if Squire Trevor had discovered her escape, and whether all Peasmarsh were up after her. She would ask herself what she should do next—what would become of her after she reached London. But absorbing as such considerations must have been to an older, more experienced woman, Lady Bell continually broke them off to be amused and interested like a child in the novelty of her present position, above all, to be fascinated with the lady who was more grandly beautiful than Mrs. Sundon. The lady had her baby asleep on one arm; with the other she held up the book, on which her fine dark eyes, their loveliest fringe of eyelashes drooping over them as she read, were riveted. Her lips were moving, as if repeating the sound of the characters in the intentness of the perusal. Once or twice Lady Bell was caught, and was held, as it were, spell-bound, by a look of sweetness or scorn or anguish, in apparent sympathy with the text. What author could find such a reader, who was never turned from him by the September sunshine, or its cloud-shadows on the sombre green, or the yellow and brown of leaves and fields, by the jolting of the carriage, by the presence of a stranger—only by the clenching of the baby’s little fist or its drowsy whimper, as it stirred and went to sleep again! What reader could be thus book-struck, and utterly inaccessible to what were to Lady Bell the irresistible influences of a journey? At last the reader, announcing to her companion that she had done her task, closed her book, replaced it in the reticule, sat up, looked round her, and seemed preparing to be social. Her eye glanced inquisitively at Lady Bell. “You missed a coach last night, madam; coaches are often unpunctual, either one way or t’other. It is a shame, and should be seen to.” She began the conversation as if the party had just started. “I was indebted to a chance ride,” answered Lady Bell evasively, with the tell-tale colour mounting in her cheeks, and a little air, as if she were above being questioned. Her questioner took in these details, and looked half-keenly, half-commiseratingly, at her companion. The gentleman bent over, and whispered impressively to the lady, “Have nothing to do with the girl. It is very odd that she should be travelling, and staying over the night alone at an inn. You know that you cannot be too particular.” “Pshaw!” exclaimed the lady aloud, with a little impatience. Then she gazed out of the chaise window, and observed meditatively, “I am sure I once travelled this road before, and by myself. It must have been on my way to Guy’s Cliff, for in all my journeyings, as one of a large family, I never went alone, save then.”