What do you say to going
home on foot?" Fanny was ready and willing to accompany her mistress.
The carriage was dismissed, and they set forth on their walk.
As they passed the inn called "The Spaniards," two women who were
standing at the garden gate stared at Iris, and smiled. A few paces
further on, they were met by an errand-boy. He too looked at the young
lady, and put his hand derisively to his head, with a shrill whistle
expressive of malicious enjoyment. "I appear to amuse these people,"
Iris said. "What do they see in me?"
Fanny answered with an effort to preserve her gravity, which was not
quite successfully disguised: "I beg your pardon, Miss; I think they
notice the curious contrast between your beautiful bonnet and your
shabby cloak."
Persons of excitable temperament have a sense of ridicule, and a dread
of it, unintelligible to their fellow-creatures who are made of coarser
material. For the moment, Iris was angry. "Why didn't you tell me of
it," she asked sharply, "before I sent away the carriage? How can I
walk back, with everybody laughing at me?"
She paused--reflected a little--and led the way off the high road, on
the right, to the fine clump of fir-trees which commands the famous
view in that part of the Heath.
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