Christian’s prayer book” on the top.  The other was French, approaching to middle age, with a nice smart plump figure, good hazel-coloured eyes, a beautiful foot and ankle, and very well dressed.  Indeed, her dress very materially reduced the appearance of her age, and she was what the milliners would call remarkably well “got up.”  Her bonnet was a pink satin, with a white blonde ruche surmounted by a rich blonde veil, with a white rose placed elegantly on one side, and her glossy auburn hair pressed down the sides of a milk-white forehead, in the Madonna style.—­Her pelisse was of “violet-des-bois” figured silk, worn with a black velvet pelerine and a handsomely embroidered collar.  Her boots were of a colour to match the pelisse; and a massive gold chain round her neck, and a solitary pearl ring on a middle finger, were all the jewellery she displayed.  Mr. Jorrocks caught a glimpse of her foot and ankle as she mounted the steps to resume her place in the diligence, and pushing the Yorkshireman aside, he bundled in directly after her, and took up the place we have described.

The vehicle was soon in motion, and its ponderous roll enchanted the heart of the grocer.  Independently of the novelty, he was in a humour to be pleased, and everything with him was couleur de rose.  Not so the Yorkshireman’s right-hand neighbour, who lounged in the corner, muffled up in his cloak, muttering and cursing at every jolt of the diligence, as it bumped across the gutters and jolted along the streets of Boulogne.  At length having got off the pavement, after crushing along at a trot through the soft road that immediately succeeds, they reached the little hill near Mr. Gooseman’s farm, and the horses gradually relaxed into a walk, when he burst forth with a tremendous oath, swearing that he had “travelled three hundred thousand miles, and never saw horses walk up such a bit of a bank before.”  He looked round the diligence in the expectation of someone joining him, but no one deigned a reply, so, with a growl and a jerk of his shoulders, he again threw himself into his corner.  The dragoon and the French lady then began narrating the histories of their lives, as the French people always do, and Mr. Jorrocks and the Yorkshireman sat looking at each other.  At length Mr. Jorrocks, pulling his dictionary and Madame de Genlis out of his pocket, observed, “I quite forgot to ask the guard at what time we dine—­most important consideration, for I hold it unfair to takes one’s stomach by surprise, and a man should have due notice, that he may tune his appetite accordingly.  I have always thought, that there’s as much dexterity required to bring an appetite to table in the full bloom of perfection, as there is in training an ’oss to run on a particular day.—­Let me see,” added he, turning over the pages of de Genlis—­“it will be under the head of eating and drinking, I suppose.—­Here it is—­(opens and reads)—­’I have a good appetite—­I am hungry—­I