But the pretty young lady, left to her own thoughts, of what _was_ she thinking? Did her mind cling regretfully to the life she had just left?—to the small, well-ordered home of her widowed old aunt; the decorous society of the staid cathedral town in the South, with its regular and deliberate gaieties, its exceeding regard for “politeness”? Or did it concern itself with the home for which she was bound, the country-house she had not seen since childhood, but which she remembered vaguely as old and half-ruinous then?—with what manner of life she was to lead there in the society of this strange, profligate-seeming uncle, who manifestly did not like her any more than she could find it in her heart to like him? Or did she have some vague intimation of great things about to happen unexpectedly?—of matters of deep import to her future life, destined to result from the chance coming together of certain people at the inn ahead? Probably Miss Georgiana Foxwell had no such thought; but ’tis a fact that at the very time when her post-chaise was coming into sight of the church-tower of this town, other conveyances were bringing other travellers to the same town, to the great though unintended influencing of her destiny. To begin at the top, for that was an age of arbitrary social distinctions, a private coach, drawn by six horses and followed by a mounted servant, was lumbering along slowly from the North. Then from the East cantered two well-fed horses, bearing, as anybody could see, their owner and his man servant. From the North again, but far behind and out of ken of the coach-and-six, came three post-horses under saddle, one of the riders being the custodian and guide. And lastly, somewhere between the private carriage and the hired horses, but not within sight of either, a stage-coach ground its way over the rugged eighteenth-century highway. Of all the vehicles and horses that raised the dust on English roads that day, only these—with the post-chaise—concern us. The first to arrive at the inn, where Caleb had by this time stayed his stomach and stepped out to look things over in the yard, were the two well-fed horses. Their owner, a robust, red-faced, round-headed, important-looking country gentleman of about five and thirty, slid off his steed with agility, and, leaving the animals to the care of his man, was met at the entry door by the landlady. “Welcome, Squire Thornby!—a welcome to your Worship! I hope I see your Worship very well, sir.” He took her obsequiousness as his due, and, with no more reciprocation than a complacent grunt, he bade her lay a cloth in the Rose and let his man Bartholomew bring to that room a round of cold beef and a quart of her best ale. With his snub-nosed crimson visage, he looked the part he had been born to fill in life; and was suitably dressed for it, too, in his brown wig, green cloth coat, brown waistcoat and breeches, large riding-boots, and plain, three-cornered hat.