After awhile, however, we took up another passenger—­a “lady” again—­and, Heaven bless the woman! one even more voluble than my first companion, and decidedly more candid, since she had not been seated five minutes in the vehicle, ere she unblushingly announced herself—­a baker’s wife!  Good Heavens! and in these march-of-intellect and refinement days, too!  Well might Niobe wake with a start from her trance of woe, and, glancing sovereign contempt upon the new, unconscious passenger, discover to me a countenance as plain, withered, and fraught with the impress of evil passions, as that of the Lady in the Sacque, in Sir Walter’s tale of the Tapestried Chamber.  I never beheld so fretful and malignant-looking a being!—­and the contrast which her visage afforded to that of my kind-hearted widow, which beamed with satisfaction and good-humour, was quite remarkable.  This “lady,” indeed, now appeared to have regained her native element, and not to be out-done in frankness by Mistress Baker, first avowed herself the widow of a chandler, but lately retired from business; and subsequently I gathered from her discourse that the gentleman her relation was, until his infirmity deprived him of the situation—­groom, in a REAL gentleman’s family (the distinction I particularly admired); and that the lady, her condescending friend, was a grocer’s daughter!  Niobe, at this precise point of the conversation, bestowed a ghastly grin upon the new allies, and producing from her reticule a well-soiled and much be-thumbed volume (whether of plays, or a novel, I could not discern), commenced perusing it with an avidity apparently unchecked by its disgusting odour, the which powerfully assailed me.  I, too, was allowed by my loquacious widow, now that she had fallen in with a bird of her own feather, to read in peace for the space of some three or four miles; but at length my attention was aroused from my book by the loud voice of Mrs. Baker, who was promulgating to Dame Chandler the mysterious manner in which she fattened her dogs, by giving them, twice or thrice a day, a quartern loaf, crumbed, and sopped in melted fat, or dripping, which saved meat, since the animals liked that food far better.  But at this instant the Telegraph stopped; and the coachman demanding his fare, since she had reached the place at which she had desired to be set down, a violent altercation ensued between them respecting sixpence; and finally the lady just stepped out of the vehicle in time to save herself from the indignity of being pulled from it by its infuriated driver.

“A fine sturren (stirring), business-like woman!” exclaimed the widow, as we again proceeded; “likelies to turn a penny whiles other folks lay a bed snoring; but mortal wasteful um sure, for one that talks about saving!  Meat indeed she may save; but lauk now, only consate the grase she gives ’em confounded brutes, and the taller trade so low!”