While they were thus engaged, the lady of the caravan held a short
conversation with her driver, after which she informed Nell that she and
her grandfather were to go forward in the caravan with her, for which
kindness Nell thanked the lady with unaffected earnestness. She helped
with great alacrity to put away the tea-things, and mounted into the
vehicle, followed by her delighted grandfather. Their patroness then
shut the door, and away they went, with a great noise of flapping, and
creaking, and straining, and the bright brass knocker, knocking one
perpetual double knock of its own accord as they jolted heavily along.
When they had travelled slowly forward for some short distance, Nell
looked around the caravan, and observed it more closely. One half of it
was carpeted, with a sleeping place, after the fashion of a berth on
board ship, partitioned off at the farther end, which was shaded with
fair, white curtains, and looked comfortable enough,--though by what
kind of gymnastic exercise the lady of the caravan ever contrived to get
into it,--was an unfathomable mystery. The other half served for a
kitchen, and was fitted up with a stove, whose small chimney passed
through the roof. It held, also, a closet or larder, and the necessary
cooking utensils, which latter necessaries hung upon the walls, which
in the other portion of the establishment were decorated with a number
of well-thumbed musical instruments.
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