But, O silly fellow! there was Somebody in the yellow chariot with my aunt, blushing like a peony, I declare, and looking so happy!--oh, so happy and pretty! She had a white dress, and a light blue and yellow scarf, which my aunt said were the Hoggarty colours; though what the Hoggartys had to do with light blue and yellow, I don't know to this day.
Well, the "True Blue" guard made a great bellowing on his horn as his four horses dashed away; the boys shouted again; I was placed bodkin between Mrs.Hoggarty and Mary; Tom Wheeler cut into his bays; the Lieutenant (who had shaken me cordially by the hand, and whose big dog did not make the slightest attempt at biting me this time) beat his pony till its fat sides lathered again; and thus in this, I may say, unexampled procession, I arrived in triumph at our village.
My dear mother and the girls,--Heaven bless them!--nine of them in their nankeen spencers (I had something pretty in my trunk for each of them)--could not afford a carriage, but had posted themselves on the road near the village; and there was such a waving of hands and handkerchiefs: and though my aunt did not much notice them, except by a majestic toss of the head, which is pardonable in a woman of her property, yet Mary Smith did even more than I, and waved her hands as much as the whole nine.

Ah! how my dear mother cried and blessed me when we met, and called me her soul's comfort and her darling boy, and looked at me as if I were a paragon of virtue and genius: whereas I was only a very lucky young fellow, that by the aid of kind friends had stepped rapidly into a very pretty property.
I was not to stay with my mother,--that had been arranged beforehand; for though she and Mrs.Hoggarty were not remarkably good friends, yet Mother said it was for my benefit that I should stay with my aunt, and so give up the pleasure of having me with her: and though hers was much the humbler house of the two, I need not say I preferred it far to Mrs.
Hoggarty's more splendid one; let alone the horrible Rosolio, of which I was obliged now to drink gallons.
It was to Mrs.H.'s then we were driven: she had prepared a great dinner that evening, and hired an extra waiter, and on getting out of the carriage, she gave a sixpence to Tom Wheeler, saying that was for himself, and that she would settle with Mrs.Rincer for the horses afterwards.

At which Tom flung the sixpence upon the ground, swore most violently, and was very justly called by my aunt an "impertinent fellow." She had taken such a liking to me that she would hardly bear me out of her sight.

We used to sit for morning after morning over her accounts, debating for hours together the propriety of selling the Slopperton property; but no arrangement was come to yet about it, for Hodge and Smithers could not get the price she wanted.

And, moreover, she vowed that at her decease she would leave every shilling to me.
Hodge and Smithers, too, gave a grand party, and treated me with marked consideration; as did every single person of the village.