accustomed garb; so slight a concession to propriety would have lain in
her putting on a bonnet and shawl!

As they neared Sudleigh town, the road grew populous with carriages and
farm-wagons, "step and step," not all from Tiverton way, but gathered
in from the roads converging here. Men were walking up and down the
market street, crying their whips, their toy balloons, and a multitude
of cheaper gimcracks.

"Forty miles from home! forty miles from home!" called one, more
imaginative than the rest. "And no place to lay my head! That's why I'm
selling these little whips here to-day, a stranger in a strange land.
Buy one! buy one! and the poor pilgrim'll have a supper and a bed! Keep
your money in your pocket, and he's a wanderer on the face of the
earth!"

Dilly, the fearless in her chosen wilds, took a fold of Molly's dress,
and held it tight.

"You s'pose that's so?" she whispered. "Oh, dear! I 'ain't got a mite
o' money, on'y these six eggs. Oh, why didn't he stay to home, if he's
so possessed to sleep under cover? What does anybody leave their home
_for_, if they've got one?"

But Molly put up her head, and walked sturdily on.

"Don't you worry," she counselled, in an undertone. "It don't mean any
more 'n it does when folks say they're sellin' at a sacrifice. I guess
they expect to make enough, take it all together."