Miss Elfride had to leave early--that was all.
Elfride never went out on horseback but she brought home something--something found, or something bought.

If she trotted to town or village, her burden was books.

If to hills, woods, or the seashore, it was wonderful mosses, abnormal twigs, a handkerchief of wet shells or seaweed.
Once, in muddy weather, when Pansy was walking with her down the street of Castle Boterel, on a fair-day, a packet in front of her and a packet under her arm, an accident befell the packets, and they slipped down.
On one side of her, three volumes of fiction lay kissing the mud; on the other numerous skeins of polychromatic wools lay absorbing it.
Unpleasant women smiled through windows at the mishap, the men all looked round, and a boy, who was minding a ginger-bread stall whilst the owner had gone to get drunk, laughed loudly.

The blue eyes turned to sapphires, and the cheeks crimsoned with vexation.
After that misadventure she set her wits to work, and was ingenious enough to invent an arrangement of small straps about the saddle, by which a great deal could be safely carried thereon, in a small compass.
Here she now spread out and fastened a plain dark walking-dress and a few other trifles of apparel.

Worm opened the gate for her, and she vanished away.
One of the brightest mornings of late summer shone upon her.