The hedges were tangled and bare , and waved a multitude of blighted garlands in the wind ; but there was no discouragement in this . It was agreeable to contemplate ; for it made the fireside warmer in possession , and the summer greener in expectancy . The river looked chilly ; but it was in motion , and moving at a good pace -- which was a great point . The canal was rather slow and torpid ; that must be admitted . Never mind . It would freeze the sooner when the frost set fairly in , and then there would be skating and sliding ; and the heavy old barges , frozen up somewhere near a wharf , would smoke their rusty iron chimney-pipes all day , and have a lazy time of it . In one place there was a great mound of weeds or stubble burning ; and they watched the fire , so white in the daytime , flaring through the fog , with only here and there a dash of red in it , until , in consequence , as she observed , of the smoke `` getting up her nose , '' Miss Slowboy choked -- she could do anything of that sort , on the smallest provocation -- and woke the Baby , who would n't go to sleep again . But Boxer , who was in advance some quarter of a mile or so , had already passed the outposts of the town , and gained the corner of the street where Caleb and his daughter lived ; and , long before they had reached the door , he and the Blind Girl were on the pavement waiting to receive them . Boxer , by the way , made certain delicate distinctions of his own , in his communication with Bertha , which persuade me fully that he knew her to be blind . He never sought to attract her attention by looking at her , as he often did with other people , but touched her invariably . What experience he could ever have had of blind people or blind dogs I do n't know . He had never lived with a blind master ; nor had Mr. Boxer the elder , nor Mrs. Boxer , nor any of his respectable family on either side , ever been visited with blindness , that I am aware of . He may have found it out for himself , perhaps , but he had got hold of it somehow ; and therefore he had hold of Bertha too , by the skirt , and kept hold , until Mrs. Peerybingle and the Baby , and Miss Slowboy and the basket , were all got safely within doors . May Fielding was already come ; and so was her mother -- a little querulous chip of an old lady with a peevish face , who , in right of having preserved a waist like a bedpost , was supposed to be a most transcendent figure ; and who , in consequence of having once been better off , or of labouring under an impression that she might have been , if something had happened which never did happen , and seemed to have never been particularly likely to come to pass -- but it 's all the same -- was very genteel and patronising indeed . Gruff and Tackleton was also there , doing the agreeable , with the evident sensation of being as perfectly at home , and as unquestionably in his own element , as a fresh young salmon on the top of the Great Pyramid . `` May ! My dear old friend ! '' cried Dot , running up to meet her . `` What a happiness to see you ! '' Her old friend was , to the full , as hearty and as glad as she ; and it really was , if you 'll believe me , quite a pleasant sight to see them embrace .
XXXXX was a man of taste , beyond all question .
Bertha Boxer Caleb Girl Peerybingle Tackleton choked day garlands right