We had stopped before a little village inn.

A row of pigeons with burnished necks looked down on me from their perch on the signboard above the door; a half-dressed, curly-headed child peeped out of a window from under the eaves, and clapped his hands at the steaming horses: and a young man walked out of the inn with a whip in his hand, and asked if there might be a lady inside the coach whose destination was Hillsbro' Farm.
I was soon seated by his side in a gig.

By a few careful glances I had easily assured myself that there was nothing of the ploughman in the appearance of Mrs.Hollingford's son.

You will want to know what I thought of him that morning, and I will tell you.

He seemed to me the beau ideal of a country gentleman: nothing less than this, and something more.