About eleven next day, a crazy machine, in the days of our grandfathers called a noddy, appeared at Mrs. Martin's door. In it was seated Mr. Lucas in his best black suit and flaxen wig, with his gold-headed cane between his knees, his hands being sufficiently occupied in reining an ill-trimmed carthorse, every movement of whose powerful hind leg threatened destruction to the awkward vehicle. The good humoured Lucy soon skipped in, and seated herself as bodkin; but to mount Mrs. Martin was a task of greater difficulty, as the gig was of considerable altitude, and the horse, teased by the flies, could not be kept quiet two minutes at a time; a chair was first produced without effect, but at last, with the aid of her maid Peggy, the neighbouring smith, and the kitchen steps commonly used to wind up the jack, she was fairly seated; and ere her laughter or her fears had subsided, they overtook the village postchaise, containing Mr. and Mrs. Crosbie, and Mrs. and Miss Lucas.--The travellers in the gig were incommoded by a dusty road, and a beaming hot sun; the effects of which were dreaded by the good aunt for Lucy's blue silk bonnet and spencer, which had been purchased two years before, during their above-mentioned visit to London, which was still their frequent theme, and only standard of fashion. However, they proceeded on the whole much to their satisfaction, and after driving nearly six miles, reached an ostentatious porter's lodge and gate, a close copy of that at Sion, which announced the entrance to Webberly House. The approach, with doublings and windings that would have puzzled the best harrier in Sussex, did not accomplish concealing the house at any one sweep, but displayed to Lucy's delighted eyes a huge pile--_ci-devant_ brick, now glorying in a coat of Roman cement, further adorned with clumsy virandas due north and east, and an open porch in the southern sun. On one side of the proud mansion was a sunk fence, and ha! ha!--on the other a shrubbery, quite inadequate to the task assigned it of hiding the glaring brick-wall of a kitchen garden, which occupied nearly as large a space as the whole of the pleasure-ground in front.