Not unmindful of the risk she
ran, however, the Marchioness no sooner left the house than she
dived into the first dark by-way that presented itself, and,
without any present reference to the point to which her journey
tended, made it her first business to put two good miles of brick
and mortar between herself and Bevis Marks.
When she had accomplished this object, she began to shape her
course for the notary's office, to which--shrewdly inquiring of
apple-women and oyster-sellers at street-corners, rather than
in lighted shops or of well-dressed people, at the hazard of
attracting notice--she easily procured a direction. As carrier-
pigeons, on being first let loose in a strange place, beat the air
at random for a short time before darting off towards the spot for
which they are designed, so did the Marchioness flutter round and
round until she believed herself in safety, and then bear swiftly
down upon the port for which she was bound.
She had no bonnet--nothing on her head but a great cap which, in
some old time, had been worn by Sally Brass, whose taste in
head-dresses was, as we have seen, peculiar--and her speed was
rather retarded than assisted by her shoes, which, being extremely
large and slipshod, flew off every now and then, and were difficult
to find again, among the crowd of passengers.
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