One March morning, meeting him in the High Street, she made bold to tax him with the change and ask his reasons.
The hour was eleven in the forenoon, the busiest of the day.

In twenty minutes the London coach would be due with the mails, and this always brought the prisoners out into the street.

The largest crowd gathered in front of "The Dogs," waiting to see the horses changed and the bags unloaded.

But a second hung around the Post Office, where the Commissary received and distributed the prisoners' letters, while lesser groups shifted and moved about at the tail of the butchers' carts, and others laden with milk, eggs, and fresh vegetables from the country; for Axcester had now a daily market, and in the few minutes before the mail's arrival the salesmen drove their best trade.
General Rochambeau tapped his snuffbox meditatively, like a man in two minds.

But he kept a sidelong eye upon Dorothea, as she turned to acknowledge a bow from the Vicomte de Tocqueville.