"Got a horse?"
"Got a pretty little mare."
"Will you drive me over to Captain Armstrong's as soon as possible to fetch this young lady's luggage?"
Julia started in her chair, and said, "Don't trouble, Mr. Hardy. My father will send the box on to me when he gets my address in London."
"How d'ye know he will?" inquired Hardy.
"Ah!" murmured Bax.
"Suppose the stepmother declines to let the box go?" said Hardy. "Now you'll want all the clothes you've got and can get, Miss Armstrong, if you mean to colonise. Bax, bear a hand, my lad; clap your mare to the cart, and report when you're ready."
He spoke as if he was on the quarter-deck of a ship and making the sailors jump for their lives, and Bax went out, saying, "I'll not be ten minutes."
"How good you are to me!" exclaimed Julia, gathering the side of her pocket-handkerchief unconsciously, and looking at him with eyes that seemed to tremble with emotion. "What should I have done had you not found me? I might have died under that hedge."
"Let me see," said Hardy; "how far off from here does your father live?"