" She put her hand in her pocket and took out the
shilling, but the tears came with the sense of exhaustion and the
thought that she was giving away her last means of getting food, which
she really required before she could go in search of Arthur. As she
held out the shilling, she lifted up her dark tear-filled eyes to the
coachman's face and said, "Can you give me back sixpence?"
"No, no," he said, gruffly, "never mind--put the shilling up again."
The landlord of the Green Man had stood near enough to witness this
scene, and he was a man whose abundant feeding served to keep his
good nature, as well as his person, in high condition. And that lovely
tearful face of Hetty's would have found out the sensitive fibre in most
men.
"Come, young woman, come in," he said, "and have adrop o' something;
you're pretty well knocked up, I can see that."
He took her into the bar and said to his wife, "Here, missis, take this
young woman into the parlour; she's a little overcome"--for Hetty's
tears were falling fast. They were merely hysterical tears: she thought
she had no reason for weeping now, and was vexed that she was too weak
and tired to help it. She was at Windsor at last, not far from Arthur.
She looked with eager, hungry eyes at the bread and meat and beer that
the landlady brought her, and for some minutes she forgot everything
else in the delicious sensations of satisfying hunger and recovering
from exhaustion.
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