"FINIS-Master Tucker's Farewell."

"And a very pretty moral on four gentlemen that pass their afternoon
a setting snails to race!"

At these words, spoken in a delicate foreign voice we all started
round: and saw a young lady standing behind us.

Now that she was the one who had passed us in the coach I saw at
once. But describe her--to be plain--I cannot, having tried a many
times. So let me say only that she was the prettiest creature on
God's earth (which, I hope, will satisfy her); that she had chestnut
curls and a mouth made for laughing; that she wore a kirtle and
bodice of grey silk taffety, with a gold pomander-box hung on a
chain about her neck; and held out a drinking glass toward us with
a Frenchified grace.

"Gentlemen, my father is sick, and will taste no water but what is
freshly drawn. I ask you not to brave Charybdis or Aetna, but to step
out into the rainy yard and draw me a glassful from the pump there:
for our servant is abroad in the town."

To my deep disgust, before I could find a word, that villainous old
pickpocket had caught the glass from her hand and reached the door.
But I ran after; and out into the yard we stepp'd together, where I
pump'd while he held the glass to the spout, flinging away the
contents time after time, till the bubbles on the brim, and the film
on the outside, were to his liking.