"Sixteen years!" she said, and the smile returned, but with an additional tinge of sadness, "sixteen years!"
"It seems a long time to you, like enough; but wait till you get old as I am, and see how short it is."
The lady did not reply; but sinking back into her seat, drew the veil over her face.
All this time, the traveller, who still held the horse by the bit, had been regarding the lady with no ordinary appearance of anxiety. He overheard the whispers passing between the ferrymen, and seemed annoyed by their import. He was evidently ill at ease. When the scow ran with a grating noise upon the shore, he gave the usual fare in silence, and entering the chaise with a swinging leap, drove toward the tavern.
The landlord, who had just arisen from an early supper, washed down by a cup of hard cider, came indolently from the front stoop and held the horse while the travellers dismounted.
"Want to bait the horse?" he inquired, pointing toward a wooden trough built against the huge trunk of the willow.
"Put him up—we shall stay all night, replied the guest."
The landlord's face expanded; it was not often that his house was honored by travellers of a higher grade than the teamsters, who brought private fare for man and horse with them; the same bag usually containing oats or corn in one end, and a box of baked beans, a loaf of bread, and a wedge of dried beef in the other—man and beast dividing accommodations equally on the journey.
"Oats or grass?" cried the good man, excited by the rich prospects before him.