with the chaise, to be kept in readiness to start at a moment's warning. More mystery and more perplexity! In fact, if these combined causes had been allowed to remain much longer in operation, the worthy landlord, instead of carrying on his business profitably, would have been carried off peremptorily, by a catarrh, his wife's nursing, and a doctor; but, fortunately, it struck one of the post-boys that rain was not necessary to a conversation, and sleet but a bad solvent of a mystery; so the posse adjourned into the tap, in order that the subject might be discussed more at the ease of the gentlemen who fancied themselves concerned in it. "And you have not seen her face?" said mine host of the Crown. "Shouldn't know her from Adam's grandmother," said the post-boy who had ridden the wheel-horses. "Howsomedever, I yeerd her sob and moan like a wheel as vants grease." "You may say that," said the other post-boy, a little shrivelled old man, a good deal past sixty; "we lads see strange soights. I couldn't a-bear to see her siffer in that 'ere manner--I did feel for her almost as much as if she'd been an 'oss." The landlord gave the two charioteers _force de complimens_ for the tenderness of their feelings, the intensity of which he fully comprehended, as he changed for each his guinea, the bounty of the lady. When he found them in proper cue, that is to say, in the middle of their second glass of brandy-and-water, he proceeded in his cross-examination, and he learned from them that they had been engaged to wait at a certain spot, on an extensive heath some twelve miles distant; that they had hardly waited there an hour when a private carriage, containing the lady in question and a gentleman, arrived; that the lady, closely veiled, had been transferred from the one conveyance to the other, and that the post-boys had been ordered to drive with the utmost speed to the destination where they now found themselves. This account seemed to satisfy the scruples of the landlord, which, of course, were by no means pecuniary, but merely moral, when in bounced the fiery-visaged landlady. He was forced to stand the small-shot of his wife. Poor man! he had only powder to reply to it, and that, just now, was woefully damp. "You lazy, loitering, do-little, much-hindering, prateapace sot! here's the lady taken alarmingly ill. The physician has been sent for, and his carriage will be at the door before you blow that ill-looking nose of yours, that my blessed ten commandments are itching to score down--you paltry --- ah!" With a very little voice, and a very great submission, mine host squeaked out, "Have you seen the lady's face?" "Face! is it face you want? and ladies' faces too--haven't I got face enough for you--you apology, you!"