"What's your occupation? What are you carrying?"
"I deal in crockery and stoneware; therefore I must take care, and put down my basket gently."
"Umph! umph!" growled Hicup; then, turning to his wife, he muttered in a tolerably audible voice, "Do you mean to give the woman a bed in the low room? It is not the first time that such gentry have packed up all they could get, and gone off during the night, finding their way out by the window."
The stranger had heard every word; but far from seeming offended, merely said, "You need not put straw in the room for me, as any corner in an out-house, or in a stable, will do well enough."
"All the stalls are empty, the more's the pity," replied Dame Hicup; "so if you prefer being there,"----
"Oh! yes," eagerly interrupted the traveller, going to lift up her basket again.
"Leave that where it is," said the suspicious Hicup, who saw in it security for the reckoning; "it will be safer here, and more readily lifted on again, than in the stable."
"Could we not make a bargain?" asked the landlady insinuatingly; "such brittle goods are always wanted."
"No, no," replied the stranger hastily; "everything in the basket is bespoke, and carefully packed up; I would lose my custom were I to open it. Perhaps another time"----
"Oh! there is no haste," answered Dame Hicup; "the thought only happened to come into my head."