In the afternoon Miss Pole called on Miss Matty to tell her of the adventure--the real adventure they had met with on their morning's walk. They had been perplexed³ about the exact path which they were to take across the fields in order to find the knitting old woman, and had stopped to inquire at a little wayside public-house, standing⁴ on the high road to London, about three miles from Cranford. The good woman had asked them to sit down and rest themselves while she fetched her husband, who could direct them better than she could; and, while they were sitting in the sanded parlour, a little girl came in. They thought that she belonged to the landlady⁵, and began some trifling⁶ conversation with her; but, on Mrs Roberts's return, she told them that the little thing was the only child of a couple who were staying in the house. And then she began a long story, out of which Lady Glenmire and Miss Pole could only gather one or two decided⁷ facts, which were that, about six weeks ago, a light spring-cart had broken down just before their door, in which there were two men, one woman, and this child. One of the men was seriously hurt--no bones broken, only "shaken," the landlady called it; but he had probably sustained some severe internal injury, for he had

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