I did not know what the Paris fashion of breakfast was, and she did not enlighten me. Anyhow, I, the yokel, had improved on it, and that was something.
"A far better brewage, madam," I said, "but you must pardon the Staffordshire fashion of serving it."
She sat up, took the cap, and drank heartily, the dawn still in her eyes and cheeks, and masses of yellow hair tumbling down from under her hood on throat and bosom. When she handed back the cap, I could not forbear from saying, "You look charming after your night's rest, and I profess that tear of milk on the tip of your nose becomes you admirably." With the rim of my cap at my lips, I added with mock concern, "Have a care, Mistress Waynflete, or you'll rub off tip as well as tear."
"I suppose you thought 'As a jewel of gold' and the rest of it," she said, squinting comically down to examine her nose.
"Really, no, madam; I thought of nothing so scandalous, from the Bible though it be. I thought of--of...."
"I'm all ears," she said archly.
"I'm a poor hand at turning compliments to ladies," said I.
"On the contrary, you turn them admirably. See!" She held up my sopping cap, and laughed merrily.
"It's ruined for best," said I, "but it will do for market days. And now, madam, it's cold enough to freeze askers, as Joe Braggs says, and for toilet you must e'en be content with first a shiver and then a shake. I will await you at the yard gate, and pray close the door behind you. The quicker the better."
She rejoined me in two or three minutes. I closed the gate cautiously behind me, and we started our journey. From the farm we got away quite unobserved, but I looked behind me at every other step to make surer, till we turned the top of the knoll, and it was with great relief that I saw the chimney-pots sink out of sight.