‘No, no,’ said the postilion, ’if he had had borough interest, he wouldn’t have been poor, nor honourable, though perhaps a right honourable.  However, with your grand education and genteel manners, you made all right at last by persuading this noble young gentlewoman to run away from boarding-school with you.’

‘I was never at boarding-school,’ said Belle, ‘unless you call—­’

‘Ay, ay,’ said the postilion, ’boarding-school is vulgar, I know:  I beg your pardon, I ought to have called it academy, or by some other much finer name—­you were in something much greater than a boarding-school.’

‘There you are right,’ said Belle, lifting up her head and looking the postilion full in the face by the light of the charcoal fire, ’for I was bred in the workhouse.’

‘Wooh!’ said the postilion.

‘It is true that I am of good—­’

‘Ay, ay,’ said the postilion, ‘let us hear—­’

‘Of good blood,’ continued Belle; ’my name is Berners, Isopel Berners, though my parents were unfortunate.  Indeed, with respect to blood, I believe I am of better blood than the young man.’

‘There you are mistaken,’ said I; ’by my father’s side I am of Cornish blood, and by my mother’s of brave French Protestant extraction.  Now, with respect to the blood of my father—­and to be descended well on the father’s side is the principal thing—­it is the best blood in the world, for the Cornish blood, as the proverb says—­’

‘I don’t care what the proverb says,’ said Belle; ’I say my blood is the best—­my name is Berners, Isopel Berners—­it was my mother’s name, and is better, I am sure, than any you bear, whatever that may be; and though you say that the descent on the fathers side is the principal thing—­and I know why you say so,’ she added with some excitement—­’I say that descent on the mother’s side is of most account, because the mother—­’

‘Just come from Gretna Green, and already quarrelling!’ said the postilion.

‘We do not come from Gretna Green,’ said Belle.

‘Ah, I had forgot,’ said the postilion; ’none but great people go to Gretna Green.  Well, then, from church, and already quarrelling about family, just like two great people.’

‘We have never been to church,’ said Belle; ’and to prevent any more guessing on your part, it will be as well for me to tell you, friend, that I am nothing to the young man, and he, of course, nothing to me.  I am a poor travelling girl, born in a workhouse:  journeying on my occasions with certain companions, I came to this hollow, where my company quarrelled with the young man, who had settled down here, as he had a right to do if he pleased; and not being able to drive him out, they went away after quarrelling with me, too, for not choosing to side with them; so I stayed here along with the young man, there being room for us both, and the place being as free to me as to him.’