Arrived at Salisbury, she quitted the machine, and her fellow travellers, with whom she had scarcely exchanged a word; and, hoping that she was now out of the way of pursuit, she put her plan into execution, by writing a tranquillizing line to Gabriella, from a stationer's shop; and then, set forth in search of a dwelling.
This was by no means easy to find. A solitary stranger, bearing her own small baggage, after travelling all night, was not very likely to be seen but with eyes of scrutiny and suspicion. Yet her air, her manner, and her language made her application always best received by the upper class of trades-people, who were most able to discern, that such belonged not to any vulgar or ordinary person: but, when they found that she enquired for a lodging, without giving any name, or any reference, they held back, alike, from granting her admission, or forwarding her wish by any recommendation.
The evident caution with which she hid as much as possible of her face, made the beauty of what was still necessarily visible, create as much ill opinion as admiration; though the perfect modesty of her deportment rescued her from receiving any offence.
In the smaller shops, and by the meaner and poorer sort of people, her carrying her parcel herself, levelled her, instantly, to their own rank; while her demand of assistance, her loneliness and even her loveliness, sunk her far beneath it, in their opinion; and, almost with one accord, they bluntly told her that she might find a lodging at an inn.
Helpless, distressed, she wandered some time in this fruitless research; too much self-occupied to remark the buildings, the neatness, the antiquities, or the singularities of the city which she was patrolling; till her eyes were caught by the little rivulets which, in most of the streets, separate the foot-path from the high-road, by perceiving two ruddy-cheeked, smiling little cherubs, attempting to paddle over one of them, and playing so incautiously, that they seemed every moment in danger of falling into the water.
She hastened towards them, to point out a bridge, somewhat higher up, by which they might more safely pass; but the elder child, a rosy boy, careless and sportive, heeded her not; till, finding the stream deeper than he expected, his little feet slipt, and he would inevitably have been under water, had not Juliet, with dextrous speed, caught him by the coat.
She aided him to scramble out, though with much difficulty, for he was wet through, and covered with mud. Frightened out of his little senses, he set up an unappeaseable cry; in which the other child, a pretty little girl, impelled by babyish though unconscious sympathy, joined, with all the vociferation which her feeble lungs were capable of emitting.
Juliet, with that kindness which childish helplessness ought always to inspire, soothed them with gentle words, and persuaded the boy to hasten to his home, that he might take off his wet cloaths before he caught cold. But they both sat down to cry at their leisure; though rather as if they did not understand, than as if they resisted her counsel.
Pitying their simple sufferings, she offered the boy a penny, to buy a gingerbread cake, if he would rise.
Quick, or rather immediate, now, was the transition from despondence to transport. The boy not merely wiped his eyes, and ceased his sobs, but, all smiles and delight, began a rapid prattling of where he should buy, and of what sort should be, his cake; while every word, rapturously, though indistinctly, was echoed by the little girl, not less slack in reviving.