'Dinner is over, neighbour Loveday; please come in,' said the widow,
seeing his case. The miller said something about coming in
presently; but Anne pressed him to stay, with a tender motion of her
lip as it played on the verge of a solicitous smile without quite
lapsing into one--her habitual manner when speaking.

Loveday took off his low-crowned hat and advanced. He had not come
about pigs or fowls this time. 'You have been looking out, like the
rest o' us, no doubt, Mrs. Garland, at the mampus of soldiers that
have come upon the down? Well, one of the horse regiments is the --
th Dragoons, my son John's regiment, you know.'

The announcement, though it interested them, did not create such an
effect as the father of John had seemed to anticipate; but Anne, who
liked to say pleasant things, replied, 'The dragoons looked nicer
than the foot, or the German cavalry either.'

'They are a handsome body of men,' said the miller in a
disinterested voice. 'Faith! I didn't know they were coming, though
it may be in the newspaper all the time. But old Derriman keeps it
so long that we never know things till they be in everybody's
mouth.'

This Derriman was a squireen living near, who was chiefly
distinguished in the present warlike time by having a nephew in the
yeomanry.

'We were told that the yeomanry went along the turnpike road
yesterday,' said Anne; 'and they say that they were a pretty sight,
and quite soldierly.'