O gentle and perspicacious reader! You, madam, who being so daintily feminine, cannot be supposed to revel in the joys of hog-flesh, flesh of ox, sheep, bird or fish, no matter how excellent well cooked; and you, honourable sir, who, being comfortably replete of such, seated before your groaning board at duly frequent and regular intervals, masticate in duty to yourself and digestion, but with none of that fine fervour of enthusiasm which true hunger may bestow--I cry ye mercy! For your author, tramping the roads, weary yet aglow with exercise, hath met and had familiar fellowship with lusty Hunger, and learned that eating, though a base necessity, may also be a joy. If therefore your author forgetteth soul awhile to something describe and mayhap dilate upon such material things as food and drink and their due assimilation, here and now he doth most humbly crave your patient forbearance. "It is a good thing to be hungry--sometimes!" said Diana. "If one may assuage that hunger with such ham and eggs!" I added. "Though I greatly fear I shall never taste their like again." "Anything'll taste good," quoth she, rising, "if you're hungry enough!" "Diana," said I, watching her as she flitted lightly to and fro, engaged on what she called "tidying up." "Diana, what are we going to do?" "I thought we were going to Tonbridge?" "I am." "Well then, the sooner we starts the better." "But," I demurred, rubbing my chin and staring hard at the toe of my clumsy shoe, "don't you think it a little unwise--very extraordinary and--yes, extremely irregular for--for two people of opposite sexes to consort thus? Are not folk apt to misjudge our intimacy?" "What folk?" "Well, I mean the world." "Lord, Peregrine, who's us for the world to trouble about?" "I merely mention this because I dread lest I compromise you." "What's compromise?" "Well," I explained, lifting my gaze to the time-worn timbering above my head, "people seeing us together might suppose we--we were--lovers--" "But we ain't!" she retorted, turning to look at me. "And never shall be--shall we?" "No!" said I with my gaze still turned upward. "Of course not! But none the less people might think we were--were living together!" "Well, so we are, ain't we?" she demanded. "But," said I, staring at my shoe again, "suppose they imagine--" "What, Peregrine?" "Evil of us?" "What matter, s' long as we knows different?" "But I cannot bear that any should speak or even think evil of you, Diana--" "Never mind about me--though it's kind of you!" she added in that suddenly soft, half-shy tone that I have before attempted to describe. "Y' see," she continued, "nobody ever troubled themselves about me all my life, except Jerry--or them as I keeps my little knife for. And you ain't that sort, so we'll go on together until I feels like leaving you, an' then I'll go--" "Go where, Diana?" "Back to the lonely places--" "What do you mean?"