'Are you hungry, child ?' 'Not very, but we are tired, and it's--it IS a long way.' 'Well, hungry or not, you had better have some tea,' rejoined her new acquaintance.

'I suppose you are agreeable to that, old gentleman ?' The grandfather humbly pulled off his hat and thanked her.

The lady of the caravan then bade him come up the steps likewise, but the drum proving an inconvenient table for two, they descended again, and sat upon the grass, where she handed down to them the tea-tray, the bread and butter, the knuckle of ham, and in short everything of which she had partaken herself, except the bottle which she had already embraced an opportunity of slipping into her pocket.
'Set 'em out near the hind wheels, child, that's the best place,' said their friend, superintending the arrangements from above.

'Now hand up the teapot for a little more hot water, and a pinch of fresh tea, and then both of you eat and drink as much as you can, and don't spare anything; that's all I ask of you.' They might perhaps have carried out the lady's wish, if it had been less freely expressed, or even if it had not been expressed at all.
But as this direction relieved them from any shadow of delicacy or uneasiness, they made a hearty meal and enjoyed it to the utmost.
While they were thus engaged, the lady of the caravan alighted on the earth, and with her hands clasped behind her, and her large bonnet trembling excessively, walked up and down in a measured tread and very stately manner, surveying the caravan from time to time with an air of calm delight, and deriving particular gratification from the red panels and the brass knocker.

When she had taken this gentle exercise for some time, she sat down upon the steps and called 'George'; whereupon a man in a carter's frock, who had been so shrouded in a hedge up to this time as to see everything that passed without being seen himself, parted the twigs that concealed him, and appeared in a sitting attitude, supporting on his legs a baking-dish and a half-gallon stone bottle, and bearing in his right hand a knife, and in his left a fork.
'Yes, Missus,' said George.
'How did you find the cold pie, George ?' 'It warn't amiss, mum.' 'And the beer,' said the lady of the caravan, with an appearance of being more interested in this question than the last; 'is it passable, George ?' 'It's more flatterer than it might be,' George returned, 'but it an't so bad for all that.' To set the mind of his mistress at rest, he took a sip (amounting in quantity to a pint or thereabouts) from the stone bottle, and then smacked his lips, winked his eye, and nodded his head.