Anne was so flurried by the military incidents attending her return home that she was almost afraid to venture alone outside her mother’s premises¹.  Moreover, the numerous soldiers, regular and otherwise, that haunted Overcombe and its neighbourhood, were getting better acquainted with the villagers, and the result was that they were always standing³ at garden gates, walking in the orchards⁴, or sitting gossiping just within cottage doors, with the bowls of their tobacco-pipes thrust outside for politeness’ sake, that they might not defile⁵ the air of the household.  Being gentlemen of a gallant⁶ and most affectionate nature, they naturally turned their heads and smiled if a pretty girl passed by, which was rather disconcerting to the latter if she were unused to society.  Every belle⁷ in the village soon had a lover, and when the belles⁸ were all allotted⁹ those who scarcely deserved that title had their turn, many of the soldiers being not at all particular about half-an-inch of nose more or less, a trifling¹⁰ deficiency of teeth, or a larger crop of freckles¹¹ than is customary in the Saxon race.  Thus, with one and another, courtship began to be practised in Overcombe on rather a large scale, and the dispossessed young men who had been born in the place were left to take their walks alone, where, instead of studying the works of nature, they meditated¹² gross

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