“I’ve a good mind not to let you. I wouldn’t if I was fit to walk five miles.”

“But I’ll roon ‘em, sir! I will that! I’ll go as fast as iver I can!”

“And have a conveyance at the road-end of the lane as near an hour hence as you possibly can?”

“Why, there, sir!” he cried, crassly inspired; “I could drive you in our own trap in half the time.”

“Oh, no, you couldn’t! I - I’m not fit to be out at all; it must be a closed conveyance; but I’ll come to the end of the lane to save time, so let him


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so good their quality. Mrs. Braithwaite watched me from the door.

“I doubt you’ll be thinking them’s our own,” said she. “I wish they were; t’squire sent ‘em in this afternoon.”

“For my use?”

“Ay; I doubt he thought what we had ourselves wasn’t good enough. An’ it’s him ‘at sent t’ armchair, t’bed-linen,


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