“Grandfather, don’t look at those I talk of, and don’t seem as if I spoke of anything but what I’m about.  What was that you told me before we left the old house?—­that if they knew what we were going to do, they would say that you were mad, and part us?”

The old man turned to her with an aspect of wild terror; but she checked him by a look, adding, “Grandfather, these men suspect that we have secretly left our friends, and mean to carry us before some gentlemen, and have us taken care of, and sent back.  If you let your hand tremble so, we can never get away from them, but if you’re only quiet now, we shall do so easily.”

“How?” muttered the old man.  “Dear Nelly, how?  They will shut me up in a stone room, dark and cold, and chain me to the wall, Nell—­flog me with whips, and never let me see thee more!”

“You’re trembling again!” said the child.  “Keep close to me all day.  I shall find a time when we can steal away.  When I do, mind you come with me, and do not stop or speak a word.  Hush! that’s all.”

“Halloa! what are you up to, my dear?” said Mr. Codlin, raising his head and yawning.

“Making some nosegays,” the child replied; “I’m going to try to sell some.  Will you have one?—­as a present, I mean.”  Mr. Codlin stuck it in his buttonhole with an air of ineffable complacency, and laid himself down again.

As the morning wore on, the tents assumed a more brilliant appearance.  Men, who had lounged about in smock frocks and leather leggings, came out in silken vests and hats and plumes, as jugglers or mountebanks.  Black-eyed gypsy girls, hooded in showy handkerchiefs, sallied forth to tell fortunes.  The dancing dogs, the stilts, the little lady and the tall man and all the other attractions, with organs out of number, and bands innumerable, emerged from the corners in which they had passed the night, and flourished boldly in the sun.

Along the uncleared course, Short led his party, sounding the brazen trumpet, and at his heels went Thomas Codlin, bearing the show, and keeping his eyes on Nelly and her grandfather, as they rather lingered in the rear.  The child bore upon her arm the little basket with her flowers, and sometimes stopped, with timid looks, to offer them at some gay carriage, but, alas! there were many bolder beggars there, adepts at their trade, and although some ladies smiled gently as they shook their heads, and others cried:  “See, what a pretty face!” they let the pretty face pass on, and never thought that it looked tired or hungry, and among all that gay throng, there was but one lady, who, taking her flowers, put money in the child’s trembling hand.

At length, late in the day, Mr. Codlin pitched the show in a convenient spot, and the spectators were soon in the very triumph of the scene.  The child, sitting down with the old man close behind it, was roused from her meditation by a loud laugh at some witticism of Mr. Short.