Peter Benny as he crossed the ferry would have been uneasier and unhappier had he understood Mr. Sam's parting words. He had not understood them because he had never laid a scheme against man, woman, or child in his life. Still he was uneasy and unhappy enough: first, because it hurt him that anyone should speak as these old women had spoken of his dead master; next, because he really felt sorry for them, and was carrying a letter to their hurt; again because, in spite of Mr. Sam's reassuring words, he could not shake off a sense of having exceeded his duties by signing that letter without consulting the Board; and lastly, because in his confusion he had forgotten his wife's state of health, and must break to the poor woman, just arisen from bed and nursing a three-weeks'-old baby, that he had invited a lodger. Now that he came to think of it, there was not a spare bedroom in the house! CHAPTER X. NUNCEY. The driver of the spring-cart was a brown-skinned, bright-eyed, and exceedingly pretty damsel of eighteen or twenty, in a pink print frock with a large crimson rose pinned in its bodice, and a pink sun-bonnet, under the pent of which her dark hair curtained her temples in two ample rippling bands. "Why, hullo!" She reined up. Hester and the young sailor had fallen apart to let her pass, and from her perch she stared down from one side of the road to the other with a puzzled, jolly smile. "Mornin', Tom!" "Mornin', Nuncey!" "Sakes alive! What be carryin' there 'pon your back?" "School furnitcher." The girl's eyes wandered from the bundle to Hester, and grew wide with surmise. "You don't mean to tell me you're the new schoolmistress!" "Yes, I'm Hester Marvin." "And I pictered 'ee a frump! But, my dear soul," she asked with sudden solemnity, "what makes 'ee do it?" "Do what?" "Why, teach school? I al'ays reckoned that a trade for old persons-- toteling poor bodies, 'most past any use except to worrit the children." "And so 'tis," put in the young sailor angrily. "Han't been crossed in love, have 'ee? But there! what be I clackin' about, when better fit I was askin' your pardon for bein' so late? I'm sent to fetch you over to Troy. Ought to have been here more'n a half-hour ago; but when you've five children to wash an' dress an' get breakfast for an' see their boots is shined, and after that to catch the hoss and put'n to cart--well, you'll have to forgive it. That's your luggage Tom's carryin', I s'pose?--and a funny passel of traps school teachers travel with, I will say. You must be clever, though; else you couldn't have coaxed Tom Trevarthen to shoulder such a load. He wouldn't lift his little finger for _me_." She shot this unrighteous shaft with a mischievous side-glance, and laughed. She had beautiful teeth, and laughing became her mightily. "But that is not my luggage." "Not your luggage! Then where--Hullo! have you two been quarrellin'? Well, I never! You can't have lost much time about it."