Truman's cream as she sets for butter reg'larly every night."

"Oh! you must cure her of that," said Lester, smiling, "I hope that's the
worst fault."

"Why, your gardiner do say," replied Peter, reluctantly, "as how she goes
arter the pheasants in Copse-hole."

"The deuce!" cried the Squire; "that will never do: she must be shot,
Peter, she must be shot. My pheasants! my best preserves! and poor Goody
Truman's cream, too! a perfect devil. Look to it, Peter; if I hear any
complaints again, Jacobina is done for--What are you laughing at, Nell?"

"Well, go thy ways, Peter, for a shrewd man and a clever man; it is not
every one who could so suddenly have elicited my father's compassion for
Goody Truman's cream."

"Pooh!" said the Squire, "a pheasant's a serious thing, child; but you
women don't understand matters."

They had now crossed through the village into the fields, and were slowly
sauntering by

"Hedge-row elms on hillocks green,"

when, seated under a stunted pollard, they came suddenly on the ill-
favoured person of Dame Darkmans: she sat bent (with her elbows on her
knees, and her hands supporting her chin,) looking up to the clear
autumnal sky; and as they approached, she did not stir, or testify by
sign or glance that she even perceived them.