She was drawing in her head, uncertain whether to pout or not, when her eyes met those of the young woman on the wall; and the latter smiled. Possibly she had noted the direction of Henrietta’s glance, and drawn her inference. At any rate, her smile was so marked and so malicious that Henrietta felt her cheek grow hot, and lost no time in drawing back and closing the window.
“What a horrid girl!” she exclaimed.
Still, after the first flush of annoyance, she would have thought no more of it—would indeed have laughed at herself for her fancy—if Mrs. Gilson’s strident voice had not at that moment brought the girl to her feet.
“Bess! Bess Hinkson!” the landlady cried, apparently from the doorway. “Hast come with the milk? Then come right in and let me have it? What are you gaping at there, you gaby? What has’t to do with thee? I do think”—with venom—“the world is full of fools!”
The girl with a sullen air took up a milk-pail that stood beside her; she wore the short linsey petticoat of the rustic of that day, and a homespun bodice. Her hair, brilliantly black, and as thick as a horse’s mane, was covered only by a handkerchief knotted under her chin.
“Bess Hinkson? What a horrid name!” Henrietta muttered as she watched her cross the road. She did not dream that she would ever see the girl again: the more as the men’s voices—she was nearly ready to descend—fixed her attention next. She caught a word, then listened.
“The devil’s in it if he’s not gone Whitehaven way!” one said. “That’s how he’s gone! Through Carlisle, say you? Not he!”
“But without a horse? He’d no horse.”
“And what if he’d not?” the first speaker retorted, with the impatience of superior intellect. “It’s Tuesday, the day of the Man packet-boat, and he’d be away in her.”
“But the packet don’t leave Whitehaven till noon,” a third struck in. “And they’ll be there and nab him before that. S’help me, he has not gone Whitehaven way!”