'Here's my little girl,' said Mrs. Garland, and the trumpet-major
looked with a sort of awe upon the muslin apparition who came
forward, and stood quite dumb before her. Anne recognized him as
the trooper she had seen from her window, and welcomed him kindly.
There was something in his honest face which made her feel instantly
at home with him.

At this frankness of manner Loveday--who was not a ladies' man--
blushed, and made some alteration in his bodily posture, began a
sentence which had no end, and showed quite a boy's embarrassment.
Recovering himself, he politely offered his arm, which Anne took
with a very pretty grace. He conducted her through his comrades,
who glued themselves perpendicularly to the wall to let her pass,
and then they went out of the door, her mother following with the
miller, and supported by the body of troopers, the latter walking
with the usual cavalry gait, as if their thighs were rather too long
for them. Thus they crossed the threshold of the mill-house and up
the passage, the paving of which was worn into a gutter by the ebb
and flow of feet that had been going on there ever since Tudor
times.



IV. WHO WERE PRESENT AT THE MILLER'S LITTLE ENTERTAINMENT

When the group entered the presence of the company a lull in the
conversation was caused by the sight of new visitors, and (of
course) by the charm of Anne's appearance; until the old men, who
had daughters of their own, perceiving that she was only a