LOW PRICES AND LONG FACES. 135 



to tear away the screen that separates them. It 

 could not be the Sun : for he is half up now, and 

 yet no answer from that thoughtful-looking Quixote, 

 who sits his mare as if he was riding in a dream, and 

 had lost the power of utterance. It was strange, 

 too ; for he had been no moody companion from the 

 time farmer Greening's trotting nag overtook him 

 on the road ; and if he had been, Mr. Greening 

 wasn't the man to have hailed him in the merry 

 way he did, and especially in such times : he would 

 have gone by with the respectful, and self-respectful, 

 morning salute of one who never intruded, nor 

 retreated on life's highway, in the matter of com- 

 panionship. But that question What was there 

 in it that had stopped the way-cheer of discourse, 

 and set one of the parties thinking like an oracle? 

 It was well that his mare happened to make a false 

 step as he turned her from the footpath where she 

 had been nursing her hoofs, for it made him wake 

 up, and say, * I'm not sure, Greening, that I can 

 answer your question, but I can tell you how I 

 answered one of the same sort a fortnight ago, to a 

 man who came to look at my vacant farm. 



' Oh ! I heerd of it, Sir, I heerd of it ! They was 

 telling of it the other night at Bogmoor: and didn't 



