"A cat may look at a king."
"She certainly is a cat, though you're not a king."
"Well," said Beatrice, preparing to move on, "I am going back to the house, and you two can settle it yourselves."
Dinah clung to her friend. "No. I won't be left alone with Jerry."
"Well, then, explain," said Beatrice impatiently, for she had too many worries of her own to take any profound interest in the frivolous ones of these milk-and-water lovers.
"I'll explain," said Mr. Snow defiantly. "There is a young lady I know in London----"
"Young!" cried Dinah; "she's thirty-five, and painted."
"Well, then, she came down here to the inn, and I met her outside. She exchanged a few words with me, and said that she wanted to know the nearest way to the Downs. It seems that her father is a shepherd on the Downs--a man called Orchard."
"What?" cried Beatrice, disengaging herself from Dinah's too fond embrace. She could scarcely believe her ears. That she should come from seeing the ex-butler for the first time, to stumble--so to speak--across his daughter, was indeed an extraordinary coincidence.
Jerry looked at her amazed, as he could not understand her tone. "Why do you look so astonished?" he asked.