Little Joris was with his mother, running hither and thither, as his eager spirits led him:  now pausing to watch her drop from her white fingers the precious seed into its prepared bed, anon darting after some fancied joy among the pyramidal yews, and dusky treillages, and cradle walks of holly and privet.  For, as Sir Thomas Swaffham said, “Hyde garden looked just as if brought from Holland;” and especially so in the spring, when it was ablaze with gorgeous tulips and hyacinths.

She had heard much of Lady Capel, and she had a certain tenderness for the old woman who loved her husband so truly; but no thought of her entered into Katherine’s mind that calm evening hour.  Neither had she any presentiment of sorrow.  Her soul was happy and untroubled, and she lingered in the sweet place until the tender touch of gray twilight was over fen and field.  Then her maid, with a manner full of pleasant excitement, came to her, and said,—­

“Here be a London pedler, madam; and he do have all the latest fashions, and the news of the king and the Americans.”

Now, for many reasons, the advent of a London pedler was a great and pleasant event at the Manor House.  Katherine had that delightful and excusable womanly foible, a love of fine clothing; and shops for its sale were very rare, even in towns of considerable size.  It was from packmen and hawkers that fine ladies bought their laces and ribbons and gloves; their precious toilet and hair pins, their paints and powders, and India scarfs and fans, and even jewellery.  These hawkers were also the great news-bearers to the lonely halls and granges and farmhouses; and they were everywhere sure of a welcome, and of such entertainment as they required.  Generally each pedler had his recognized route and regular customers; but occasionally a strange dealer called, and such, having unfamiliar wares, was doubly welcome.  “Is it Parkins, Lettice?” asked Katherine, as she turned with interest toward the house.

“No, ma’am, it isn’t Parkins; and I do think as the man never showed a face in Hyde before; but he do say that he has a miracle of fine things.”

In a few minutes he was exhibiting them to Katherine, and she was too much interested in the wares to notice their merchant particularly.

Indeed, he had one of those faces which reveal nothing; a face flat, hard, secret as a wall, wrinkled as an old banner.  He was a hale, thick-set man, dressed in breeches of corduroy, and a sleeved waistcoat down to his knees of the same material.  His fur cap was on the carpet beside his pack; and he had a fluent tongue in praise of his wares, as he hung his silks over Lettice’s outstretched arm, or arranged the scarfs across her shoulders.

There was a slow but mutually satisfactory exchange of goods and money; and then the pedler began to repack his treasures, and Lettice to carry away the pretty trifles and the piece of satin her mistress had bought.  Then, also, he found time to talk, to take out the last newspapers, and to describe the popular dissatisfaction at the stupid tyranny of the Government toward the Colonies.  For either from information, or by some process rapid as instinct, he understood to which side Katherine’s sympathies went.