She now dropped, scarcely able to breathe from the oppression of the heat; or to sustain herself from the enfeebling effects of emptiness, joined to overpowering fatigue. With pain and difficulty she dragged on her wearied limbs; while a furious thirst parched her mouth, and seemed consuming her inside. Now, too, her distress received the tormenting augmentation of intrusive interruption; for, in losing the elasticity of her motions, she lost, to the vulgar observer, her appearance of innocence. Her eye, eagerly cast around in search of an asylum, appeared to be courting attention; her languor seemed but loitering; and her slow unequal pace, wore the air of inviting a companion. Nor was the character of chaste diligence, and vivacious business, any longer predominant in those whom she now casually encountered. The noon-tide heat, in impairing their bodily strength, caused a mental lassitude, that made them ready for any dissipation that might divert their weariness; and Juliet, young, rosy, and alone, seemed exactly fashioned for awakening their drowsy faculties. No one, therefore, passed, without remarking her; and scarcely any one without making her some address. The inconsistency of her attire, which her slackened pace allowed time for developing, gave rise to much comment, and some mockery. Her ordinary bonnet and blue apron, ill accorded with the other part of her dress; and she was now assailed with coarse compliments upon her pretty face; now by jocose propositions to join company; and now by free solicitations for a salute. Painfully she forced herself on, till, at length, she discerned an ancient dame, in a field by the side of the road, who sat spinning at the door of a cottage. She crossed a style, and, presenting herself to the old woman, craved a draught of water, and permission to take a little rest. The good old dame, who was surrounded by little boys and girls, to whom she was singing the antique ballad of the children of the wood, in a tone so dolorous, and with such heavy sighs, that the elder of her hearers, who were five and six years old, were dissolved in tears; while the younger ones clung to her knees, pale and scared, finished her stanza, before she would answer, or look at the supplicant stranger. She then raised her eyes, with evident vexation at the interruption; but, when she perceived the weak state, and listened to the faint accents of her petitioner, the expression of her countenance became all benevolence; and, good humouredly nodding her head, she disengaged herself from the children, arose, fetched a horn of water, added to it a cup of milk, and then, presenting to the weary traveller her own chair, which was large and low, she got a smaller, and less commodious one, from the kitchen for herself. The nearly exhausted Juliet gratefully accepted this hospitality; and, in quaffing her milk and water, believed herself initiated in the knowledge of the flavour, and of all the occult qualities, of Nectar.