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Dollery, was rather a movable attachment of the roadway than an extraneous object, to those who knew it well.
Dollery, having to hop up and down many times in the service of her passengers, wore, especially in windy weather, short leggings under her gown for modesty's sake, and instead of a bonnet a felt hat tied down with a handkerchief, to guard against an earache to which she was frequently subject.
When it got nearer, he said, with some relief to himself, "'Tis Mrs. Dollery's this will help me." The vehicle was half full of passengers, mostly women. He held up his stick at its approach, and the woman who was driving drew rein. "I've been trying to find a short way to Little Hintock this last half-hour, Mrs. Dollery," he said.
The passengers in the back part formed a group to themselves, and while the new-comer spoke to the proprietress, they indulged in a confidential chat about him as about other people, which the noise of the van rendered inaudible to himself and Mrs. Dollery, sitting forward. "'Tis Barber Percombe he that's got the waxen woman in his window at the top of Abbey Street," said one.
Dollery, "'tis such a little small place that, as a town gentleman, you'd need have a candle and lantern to find it if ye don't know where 'tis. Bedad! I wouldn't live there if they'd pay me to. Now at Great Hintock you do see the world a bit." He mounted and sat beside her, with his feet outside, where they were ever and anon brushed over by the horse's tail. This van, driven and owned by Mrs.
Dollery remained which was rather long, from her sense of the importance of her errand he went into the out-house; but as soon as she had had her say, been paid, and had rumbled away, he entered the dwelling, to find there what he knew he should find his wife and daughter in a flutter of excitement over the wedding-gown, just arrived from the leading dress-maker of Sandbourne watering-place aforesaid.
But it was not heavy for its size; Mrs. Dollery herself carried it into the house. Tim Tangs, the hollow-turner, Bawtree, Suke Damson, and others, looked knowing, and made remarks to each other as they watched its entrance. Melbury stood at the door of the timber-shed in the attitude of a man to whom such an arrival was a trifling domestic detail with which he did not condescend to be concerned.
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