"She'll be having some delicate high quality chap, I reckon, one o' these fine days," said Hazel.
"She will be a dainty dish, truly, for whomever God gives her to," quoth Dickons.
"Ay, she will," said more than one, in an earnest tone.
"Now, to my mind," said Tonson, "saving your presence, Master Dickons, I know not but young Madam be more to my taste; she be in a manner somewhat fuller—plumper-like, and her skin be so white, and her hair as black as a raven's."
"There's not another two such women to be found in the whole world," said Dickons, authoritatively. Here Hector suddenly rose up, and went to the door, where he stood snuffing in an inquisitive manner.
"Now, what do that dog hear, I wonder?" quoth Pumpkin, curiously, stooping forward.
"Blind Bess," replied Tonson, winking his eye, and laughing. Presently there was a sharp rapping at the door; which the landlord opened, and let in one of the servants from the Hall, his clothes white with snow, his face nearly as white, with manifest agitation.
"Why, man, what's the matter?" inquired Dickons, startled by the man's appearance. "Art frightened at anything?"
"Oh, Lord! oh, Lord!" he commenced.
"What is it, man? Art drunk?—or mad?—or frightened? Take a drop o' drink," said Tonson. But the man refused it.