It was nightfall, when, limp and unnerved, possibly for the very first time in her life conscious of such physical conditions, the clown pulled her up before the inn in order to allow her to alight. Bundle under arm; feet and legs, up to calves, well bespattered with mud from the reek of her passage across London Bridge afoot; wig somewhat tangled for all that she had slipped her wig comb out of pocket and essayed to smooth it a bit; sleeves upturned, cloak dragging over her arm to heels,—a sorry, disheveled-appearing young personage jumped from among a pile of oat-bags, leathern aprons, chairs, unsold produce, wilted flowers, and under the askant eyes of ’ostler, boots, barmaid, mistress, and host, marched boldly into the parlor of the Queen and Artichoke. “Was there a chamber to be had?” for Her Ladyship plainly saw she must lie at Tooting and not proceed on her homeward journey until the morrow. There was a chamber; an admission hesitatingly made, even at this modest hostelry, to a young gentleman arriving without either servant, luggage, box, horse, coach, or dog, and by means of a vile rickety little cart. Yet, such was Her Ladyship’s swagger, notwithstanding a full splash of mud on the tip-end of her handsome little chin, she was presently conducted to a decent chamber, up-stairs, at the rear, it is true, yet overlooking the green, where a game of bowls was in progress, and with a fine trellis, thick with vines, beneath its small-paned window. “Was there an ordinary?” Oh, the shame and humiliation of it! that the daughter of the Earl of Exham should be put to such an ebb, instead of ordering the best the house afforded sent at once to her room. Aye, there was an ordinary of two dishes and a pastry at ten-pence, and it would be ready in the quarter hour. “Ten-pence.” Her Ladyship had just eleven pence ha’penny left in her purse. Yet, thought she, refreshed by a good meal and the leaving of her weapon as a hostage for her lodging, she would better eat than faint to-night, whatever might betide on the morrow. While she washed her hands, after hiding the bundle under the feather bed, Her Ladyship heard the ring of horses’ hoofs on the stone pave of the inn yard; and her quick ear even detected the fact that one of the steeds went lame. She peered out of window and beheld Sir Percy astride of his own long roan, with Grigson just dismounting from the smoking black. “This is cursed luck!” mutters the master, as he himself, out of saddle, stoops to examine the roan’s much swollen off hind-leg. “It is, Sir Percy,” returns the man, “but, by your leave, Sir, it may be we can hire a mount here, although it don’t look too promisin’.” “Unlikely,” says Sir Percy. “The best we can do is to lie in this hole for the night, and by a hot poultice and a bandage, the roan may be in condition by to-morrow forenoon.”