with that pert, turned-up nose which the old caricaturist Woodward used to
attribute to the gentlemen of Tewkesbury, was leaning on his horses, and
looked hard at me as I passed. A lady who sat within looked out, with an
extra-fashionable bonnet on, and also treated us to a stare. Very pink and
white cheeks she had, very black glossy hair and bright eyes--fat, bold,
and rather cross, she looked--and in her bold way she examined us curiously
as we passed.

I mistook the situation. It had once happened before that an intending
visitor at Knowl had entered the place by that park-road, and lost several
hours in a vain search for the house.

'Ask him, Madame, whether they want to go to the house; I dare say they
have missed their way,' whispered I.

'_Eh bien,_ they will find again. I do not choose to talk to post-boys;
_allons_!'

But I asked the man as we passed, 'Do you want to reach the house?'

By this time he was at the horses' heads, buckling the harness.

'Noa,' he said in a surly tone, smiling oddly on the winkers, but,
recollecting his politeness, he added, 'Noa, thankee, misses, it's what
they calls a picnic; we'll be takin' the road now.'

He was smiling now on a little buckle with which he was engaged.

'Come--nonsense!' whispered Madame sharply in my ear, and she whisked me by
the arm, so we crossed the little stile at the other side.