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makes her bonnet-lining pale. Ah, Mabel! then the golden oxslip and the cowslip,Mabel! Now they are going to work again; "cinque-spotted;" then the blue pansy, and -no-after three or four strokes, the hoes the enamelled wild hyacinth; then the bright have somehow become entangled, and, with- foliage of the briar-rose, which comes trailing out either advancing a step nearer the other, its green wreaths amongst the flowers; then they are playing with these rustic implements the bramble and the woodbine, creeping round as pretty a game at romps-showing off as the foot of a pollard oak, with its brown foldnice a piece of rural flirtation-as ever was ed leaves; then a verdant mass-the black exhibited since wheat was hoed. thorn, with its lingering blossoms-the hawthorn, with its swelling buds-the bushy maple-the long stems of the hazel-and between them, hanging like a golden plume over the bank, a splendid tuft of the blossomed broom; then, towering high above all, the tall and leafy elms. And this is but a faint picture of this hedge, on the meadowy side of which sheep are bleating, and where, every here and there, a young lamb is thrusting its pretty head between the trees.

Ah, Mabel! Mabel! beware of Farmer Thorpe! He'll see, at a glance, that little will his corn profit by such labours. Beware, too, Jem Tanner!-for Mabel is, in some sort, an heiress; being the real niece and adopted daughter of our little lame clerk, who, although he looks such a tattered raggamuffin, that the very grave-diggers are ashamed of him, is well to pass in the world-keeps a scrub pony, -indeed he can hardly walk up the aisle hath a share in the county fire-office- and Who is this approaching? Farmer Thorpe ? money in the funds. Mabel will be an heiress, Yes, of a certainty, it is that substantial yeodespite the tatterdemalion costume of her hon- man, sallying forth from his substantial farmoured uncle, which I think he wears out of house, which peeps out from between two coquetry, that the remarks which might other- huge walnut-trees on the other side of the wise fall on his miserable person full as road, with intent to survey his labourers in misshapen as that of any Hunchback recorded the wheat-field. Farmer Thorpe is a stout, in the Arabian Tales-may find a less offen- square, sturdy personage of fifty, or theresive vent on his raiment. Certain such a about, with a hard weather-beaten countefigure hath seldom been beheld out of church nance, of that peculiar vermilion, all over or in. Yet will Mabel, nevertheless, be a for- alike, into which the action of the sun and tune; and, therefore, she must intermarry with wind sometimes tans a fair complexion; sharp another fortune, according to the rule made and shrewd features, and a keen grey eye. He provided in such cases; and the little clerk looks completely like a man who will neither hath already looked her out a spouse, about cheat nor be cheated: and such is his charachis own standing-a widower in the next ter-an upright, downright English yeoman parish, with four children and a squint. Poor just always, and kind in a rough way-but Jem Tanner! Nothing will that smart person or that pleasant speech avail with the little clerk;-never will he officiate at your marriage to his niece;" amen" would stick in his throat." Poor things! in what a happy oblivion of the world and its cares, Farmer Thorpe and the wheat-hoeing, the squinting shop-keeper and the little clerk, are they laughing and talking at this moment! Poor things! poor things!

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Well, I must pursue my walk. How beautiful a mixture of flowers and leaves is in the high bank under this north hedge-quite an illustration of the blended seasons of which I spoke. An old irregular hedge-row is always beautiful, especially in the spring-time, when the grass, and mosses, and flowering weeds mingle best with the bushes and creeping plants that overhang them. But this bank is, most especially, various and lovely. Shall we try to analyze it? First, the clinging white-veined ivy, which crawls up the slope in every direction, the master-piece of that rich mosaic; then the brown leaves and the lilac blossoms of its fragrant namesake, the ground-ivy, which grows here so profusely; then the late-lingering primrose; then the delicate wood-sorrel; then the regular pink stars of the cranesbill, with its beautiful leaves;

given to fits of anger, and filled with an ab-
horrence of pilfering, and idleness, and trick-
ery of all sorts, that makes him strict as a
master, and somewhat stern at workhouse
and vestry. I doubt if he will greatly relish
the mode in which Jem and Mabel are admin-
istering the hoe in his wheat-drills. He will
not reach the gate yet; for his usual steady
active pace is turned, by a recent accident,
into an unequal, impatient halt-as if he were
alike angry with his lameness and the cause.
I must speak to him as he passes-not merely
as a due courtesy to a good neighbour, but to
give the delinquents in the field notice to re-
sume their hoeing; but not a word of the limp
that is a sore subject.

“A fine day, Mr. Thorpe!"
"We want rain, ma'am !"

And on, with great civility, but without pausing a moment, he is gone. He'll certainly catch Mabel and her lover philandering over his wheat-furrows. Well, that may take its chance!-they have his lameness in their favour-only that the cause of that lameness has made the worthy farmer unusually cross. I think I must confide the story to my readers.

Gipsies and beggars do not in general much inhabit our neighbourhood; but, about half a mile off, there is a den so convenient for stroll

ers and vagabonds, that it sometimes tempts a he-turkey-chanticleer, the pride and glory the rogues to a few days' sojourn. It is, in truth, nothing more than a deserted brick-kiln, by the side of a lonely lane. But there is something so snug and comfortable in the old building (always keeping in view gipsy notions of comfort;) the blackened walls are so backed by the steep hill on whose side they are built so fenced from the bleak north-east, and letting in so gaily the pleasant western sun; and the wide rugged impassable lane (used only as a road to the kiln, and with that abandor.ed) is at once so solitary and deserted, and so close to the inhabited and populous world, that it seems made for a tribe whose prime requisites in a habitation are shelter, privacy, and a vicinity to farm-yards.

Accordingly, about a month ago, a pretty strong encampment, evidently gipsies, took up their abode in the kiln. The party consisted of two or three tall, lean, sinister-looking men, who went about the country mending pots and kettles, and driving a small trade in old iron; one or two children, unnaturally quiet, the spies of the crew; an old woman who sold matches and told fortunes; a young woman, with an infant strapped to her back, who begged; several hungry dogs, and three ragged donkeys. The arrival of these vagabonds spread a general consternation through the village. Gamekeepers and housewives were in equal dismay. Snares were found in the preserves-poultry vanished from the farm-yards -a lamb was lost from the lea-and a damask table-cloth, belonging to the worshipful the Mayor of W, was abstracted from the drying-ground of Rachel Strong, the most celebrated laundress in these parts, to whom it had been sent for the benefit of country washing. No end to the pilfering and the stories of pilfering! The inhabitants of the kiln were not only thieves in themselves, but the cause of thievery in others. "The gipsies!" was the answer general to every inquiry for things missing.

of the yard, was missing! and Mrs. Thorpe's lamentations and her husband's anger redou bled. Vowing vengeance against the gipsies, he went to the door to survey a young blood mare of his own breeding; and as he stood at the gate-now bemoaning chanticleer-now cursing the gipsies-now admiring the bay filly-his neighbour, dame Simmons - the identical lady of the mop, who occasionally charred at the house-came to give him the comfortable information that she had certainly heard chanticleer-she was quite ready to swear to chanticleer's voice-crowing in the brick-kiln. No time, she added, should be lost, if farmer Thorpe wished to rescue that illustrious cock, and to punish the culpritssince the gipsies, when she passed the place, were preparing to decamp.

No time was lost. In one moment farmer Thorpe was on the bay filly's unsaddled back, with the halter for a bridle; and, in the next, they were on full gallop towards the kiln. But, alas! alas! "the more haste the_worse speed," says the wisdom of nations. Just as they arrived at the spot from which the procession-gipsies, dogs, and donkeys-and chanticleer in a sack, shrieking most vigor. ously-were proceeding on their travels, the young blood mare- - whether startled at the unusual cortége, or the rough ways, or the hideous noise of her old friend, the cock — suddenly reared and threw her master, who lay in all the agony of a sprained ankle, unable to rise from the ground; whilst the whole tribe, with poor chanticleer their prisoner, marched triumphantly past him, utterly regardless of his threats and imprecations. In this plight was the unlucky farmer discovered, about half an hour afterwards, by his wife, the constable, and a party of his own labourers, who came to give him assistance in securing the culprits; of whom, notwithstanding an instant and active search through the neighbourhood, nothing has yet transpired. We shall hardly see them again in these parts, and have almost done talking of them. The village is returned to its old state of order and honesty; the Mayor of Whas replaced his table-cloth, and Mrs. Thorpe her cock : and the poor farmer's lame ankle is all that remains to give token of the gipsies.

Farmer Thorpe-whose dwelling, with its variety of outbuildings-barns, ricks, and stables-is only separated by a meadow and a small coppice from the lane that leads to the gipsy retreat was particularly annoyed by this visitation. -Two couple of full-grown ducks, and a whole brood of early chickens, disappeared in one night; and Mrs. Thorpe fretted over the loss, and the farmer was indignant at the roguery. He set traps, let loose mastiffs, and put in action all the resources of village police-but in vain. Every night, property went; and the culprits, however strong-parsonage we have from hence, between those ly suspected, still continued unamenable to

the law.

At last, one morning, the great chanticleer of the farm-yard-a cock of a million, with an unrivalled crow-a matchless strut, and plumage all gold and green, and orange and purple-gorgeous as a peacock, and fierce as

Here we are at the turning, which, edging round by the coppice, branches off to their sometime den: the other bend to the right leads up a gentle ascent to the vicarage, and that is our way. How fine a view of the little

arching elms, which enclose it like a picture in a frame! and how pretty a picture it forms, with its three pointed roofs, its snug porch, and its casement windows glittering from amid the china roses! What a nest of peace and comfort! Further on, almost at the summit of the hill, stands the old church with its

massy tower-a row of superb lime-trees running along one side of the churchyard, and a cluster of dark yews shading the other. Few country churches have so much to boast in architectural beauty, or in grandeur of situation.

We lose sight of it as we mount the hill, the lane narrowing and winding between deep banks, surmounted by high hedges, excluding all prospects till we reach the front of the vicarage, and catch across the gate of the opposite field a burst of country the most extensive and the most beautiful-field and village, mansion and cot, town and river, all smiling under the sparkling sun of May, and united and harmonized by the profusion of hedge-row timber in its freshest verdure, giving a rich woodland character to the scene, till it is terminated in the distance by the blue line of the Hampshire hills almost melting into the horizon. Such is the view from the vicarage. But it is too sunny and too windy to stand about out of doors, and time to finish our ramble. Down the hill, and round the corner, and past farmer Thorpe's house, and one glance at the wheat-hoers, and then we will go home. Ah! it is just as I feared. Jem and Mabel have been parted: they are now at opposite sides of the fields-he looking very angry, working rapidly and violently, and doing more harm than good-she looking tolerably sulky, and just moving her hoe, but evidently doing nothing at all. Farmer Thorpe, on his part, is standing in the middle of the field, observing, but pretending not to observe, the little humours of the separated lovers. There is a lurking smile about the corners of his mouth that bespeaks him more amused than angry. He is a kind person after all, and will certainly make no mischief. I should not even wonder if he espoused Jem Tanner's cause; and, for certain, if any one can prevail on the little clerk to give up his squinting favourite in favour of true love, farmer Thorpe is the

man.

THE VILLAGE SCHOOLMISTRESS.

memory was embalmed by a deed of charity and of goodness. She had founded and endowed a girls' school for "the instruction" (to use the words of the deed) "of twenty poor children, and the maintenance of one discreet and godly matron;" and the school still continued to be called after its foundress, and the very spot on which the school-house stood, to be known by the name of Lady Lacy's Green.

It was a spot worthy of its destination,—a spot of remarkable cheerfulness and beauty. The Green was small, of irregular shape, and situate at a confluence of shady lanes. Half the roads and paths of the parish met there, probably for the convenience of crossing in that place, by a stone bridge of one arch covered with ivy, the winding rivulet which intersected the whole village, and which, sweeping in a narrow channel round the school garden, widened into a stream of some consequence, in the richly-wooded meadows beyond. The banks of the brook, as it wound its glittering course over the green, were set, here and there, with clumps of forest trees, chiefly bright green elms, and aspens with their quivering leaves and their pale shining bark; whilst a magnificent beech stood alone near the gate leading to the school, partly overshadowing the little court in which the house was placed. The building itself was a beautiful small structure, in the ornamented style of Elizabeth's day, with pointed roofs and pinnacles, and clustered chimneys, and casement windows; the whole house enwreathed and garlanded by a most luxuriant vine. The date of the erection, 1563, was cut in a stone inserted in the brickwork above the porch; but the foundress had, with an unostentatious modesty, withheld her name; leaving it, as she safely might, to the grateful recollection of the successive generations who profited by her benevolence. Altogether it was a most gratifying scene to the eye and to the heart. No one ever saw Lady Lacy's school-house without admiration, especially in the playhour at noon, when the children, freed from "restraint that sweetens liberty," were clustered under the old beech-tree, revelling in their innocent freedom, running, jumping, shouting, and laughing with all their might; the only sort of riot which it is pleasant to witness. The painter and the philanthropist might contemplate that scene with equal delight.

WOMEN, fortunately perhaps for their happiness and their virtue, have, as compared with men, so few opportunities of acquiring permanent distinction, that it is rare to find a The right of appointing both the mistress female unconnected with literature or with and the scholars had been originally vested in history, whose name is remembered after her the Lacy family, to whom nearly the whole monument is defaced, and the brass on her of the parish at one time belonged. But the coffin-lid corroded. Such, however, was the estates, the manor, the hall-house, had long case with dame Eleanor, the widow of Sir passed into other hands and other names, and Richard Lacy, whose name, at the end of three this privilege of charity was now the only centuries, continued to be as freshly and as possession which the heirs of Lady Lacy refrequently spoken, as "familiar" a "house- tained in Aberleigh. Reserving to themselves hold word" in the little village of Aberleigh, the right of nominating the matron, her deas if she had flourished there yesterday. Her scendants had therefore delegated to the vicar

Under her misrule the school grew into sad disorder; the girls not only learnt nothing, but unlearnt what they knew before; work was lost-even the new shifts of the Vicar's lady; books were torn; and, for the climax of evil, no sampler was prepared to carry round at Christmas, from house to house-the first time such an omission had occurred within the memory of man. Farmer Brookes was at his wit's end. He visited the school six days in the week, to admonish and reprove; he even went nigh to threaten that he would

and the parish officers the selection of the children and the general regulation of the school-a sort of council of regency, which, for as simple and as peaceful as the government seems, a disputatious churchwarden, or a sturdy overseer, would sometimes contrive to render sufficiently stormy. I have known as much canvassing and almost as much illwill in a contested election for one of Lady Lacy's scholarships, as for a scholarship in grander places, or even for an M. P.-ship in the next borough; and the great schism between the late Farmer Brookes and all his co-work a sampler himself; and finally bestowadjutors, as to whether the original uniform of little green stuff gowns, with white bibs and aprons, tippets, and mob, should be commuted for modern cotton frocks and cottage bonnets, fairly set the parish by the ears. Owing to the good farmer's glorious obstinacy (which I suppose he called firmness), the green-gownians lost the day. I believe that, as a matter of calculation, the man might be right, and that his costume was cheaper and more convenient; but I am sure that I should have been against him, right or wrong; the other dress was so pretty, so primitive, so neat, so becoming; the little lasses looked like rose-buds in the midst of their leaves: besides, it was the old traditionary dress-the dress contrived and approved by Lady Lacy. -Oh! it should never have been changed, never!

Since there was so much contention in the election of pupils, it was, perhaps, lucky for the vestry that the exercise of the more splendid piece of patronage, the appointment of a mistress, did not enter into its duties. Mr. Lacy, the representative of the foundress, a man of fortune in a distant county, generally bestowed the situation on some old dependant of his family. During the churchwardenship of Farmer Brookes, no less than three village gouvernantes arrived at Aberleigh-a quick succession! It made more than half the business of our zealous and bustling man of office, an amateur in such matters, to instruct and overlook them. The first importation was Dame Whitaker, a person of no small importance, who had presided as head nurse over two generations of the Lacys, and was now, on the dispersion of the last set of her nurslings to their different schools, and an unlucky quarrel with a favourite lady's maid, promoted and banished to this distant government. Nobody could be more unfit for her new station, or better suited to her old. She was a nurse from top to toe. Round, portly, smiling, with a coaxing voice, and an indolent manner; much addicted to snuff and green tea, to sit ting still, to telling long stories, and to humouring children. She spoiled every brat she came near, just as she had been used to spoil the little Master Edwards and Miss Julias of her ancient dominions. She could not have scolded if she would-the gift was not in her.

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ed on the unfortunate ex-nurse, the nickname of Queen Log, a piece of disrespect, which, together with other grievances, proved so annoying to poor Dame Whitaker, that she found the air of Aberleigh disagree with her, patched up a peace with her old enemy, the lady's maid, abdicated that unruly and rebellious principality, the school, and retired with great delight to her quiet home in the deserted nursery, where, as far as I know, she still remains.

The grief of the children on losing this most indulgent non-instructress, was not mitigated by the appearance or demeanour of her successor, who at first seemed a preceptress after Farmer Brookes's own heart, a perfect Queen Stork. Dame Banks was the widow of Mr. Lacy's game-keeper; a little thin woman, with a hooked nose, a sharp voice, and a prodigious activity of tongue. She scolded all day long; and for the first week passed for a great teacher. After that time it began to be discovered, that, in spite of her lessons, the children did not learn; notwithstanding her rating they did not mind, and in the midst of a continual bustle, nothing was ever done. Dame Banks was in fact a well-intentioned, worthy woman, with a restless irritable temper, a strong desire to do her duty, and a woful ignorance how to set about it. She was rather too old to be taught either; at least she required a gentler instructor than the good churchwarden; and so much ill-will was springing up between them, that he had even been heard to regret the loss of Dame Whitaker's quietness, when very suddenly poor Dame Banks fell ill and died. The sword had worn the scabbard; but she was better than she seemed; a thoroughly well-meaning woman-grateful, pious, and charitable; even our man of office admitted this.

The next in succession was one with whom my trifling pen, dearly as that light and fluttering instrument loves to dally and disport over the surfaces of things, must take no saucy freedom; one of whom we all felt it impossible to speak or to think without respect; one who made Farmer Brookes's office of adviser a sinecure, by putting the whole school, himself included, into its proper place, setting every body in order, and keeping them so. I don't know how she managed, unless by good

sense and good-humour, and that happy art of government, which seems no art at all, because it is so perfect; but the children were busy and happy, the vestry pleased, and the churchwarden contented. All went well under Mrs. Allen.

creature: not pretty-a girl of that age seldom is; the beauty of childhood is outgrown, that of youth not come; and Jane could scarcely ever have had any other pretensions to prettiness, than the fine expression of her dark grey eyes, and the general sweetness of her countenance. She was pale, thin, and delicate; serious and thoughtful far beyond her years; averse from play, and shrinking from notice. Her fondness for Mrs. Allen, and her constant and unremitting attention to her health and comforts, were peculiarly remarkable. Every part of their small housewifery, that her height and strength and skill would enable her to perform, she insisted on doing, and many things far beyond her power she attempted. Never was so industrious or so handy a little maiden. Old Nelly Chun, the char-woman, who went once a week to the house, to wash and bake and scour, declared that Jane did more than herself; and to all who knew Nelly's opinion of her own doings, this praise appeared superlative.

She was an elderly woman, nearer perhaps to seventy than to sixty, and of an exceedingly venerable and prepossessing appearance. Delicacy was her chief characteristic-a delicacy so complete that it pervaded her whole person, from her tall, slender figure, her fair, faded complexion, and her silver hair to the exquisite nicety of dress by which, at all hours and seasons, from Sunday morning to Saturday night, she was invariably distinguished. The soil of the day was never seen on her apparel; dust would not cling to her snowy caps and handkerchiefs: such was the art magic of her neatness. Her very pins did their office in a different manner from those belonging to other people. Her manner was gentle, cheerful, and courteous, with a simplicity and propriety of expression that perplexed all listeners; it In the school-room she was equally assiduseemed so exactly what belongs to the highest ous, not as a learner, but as a teacher. None birth and the highest breeding. She was so clever as Jane in superintending the differhumble, very humble; but her humility was ent exercises of the needle, the spelling-book, evidently the result of a truly Christian spirit, and the slate. From the little work-woman's and would equally have distinguished her in first attempt to insert thread into a pocket any station. The poor people, always nice handkerchief, that digging and ploughing of judges of behaviour, felt, they did not know cambric, miscalled hemming, up to the nice why, that she was their superior; the gentry and delicate mysteries of stitching and buttonof the neighbourhood suspected her of being holing; from the easy junction of a b, ab, and their equal- some clergyman's or officer's ba, ba, to that tremendous sesquipedalian word widow, reduced in circumstances; and would irrefragibility, at which even I tremble as I have treated her as such, had she not, on dis-write; from the Numeration Table to Practice, covering their mistake, eagerly undeceived nothing came amiss to her. In figures she them. She had been, she said, all her life a was particularly quick. Generally speaking, servant, the personal attendant of one dear her patience with the other children, however mistress, on whose decease she had been re- dull or tiresome or giddy they might be, was commended to Mr. Lacy; and to his kindness, exemplary; but a false accomptant, a stupid under Providence, was indebted for a home arithmetician, would put her out of humour. and a provision for her helpless age, and the The only time I ever heard her sweet, gentle still more helpless youth of a poor orphan, far voice raised a note above its natural key, was dearer to her than herself. This avowal, al-in reprimanding Susan Wheeler, a sturdy, though it changed the character of the respect paid to Mrs. Allen, was certainly not calculated to diminish its amount; and the new mistress of Lady Lacy's school, and the beautiful order of her house and garden, continued to be the pride and admiration of Aberleigh.

The orphan of whom she spoke was a little girl about eleven years old, who lived with her, and whose black frock bespoke the recent death of some relative. She had lately, Mrs. Allen said, lost her grandmother-her only remaining parent, and had now no friend but herself on earth; but there was One above who was a Father to the fatherless, and He would protect poor Jane! And as she said this, there was a touch of emotion, a break of the voice, a tremour on the lip, very unlike the usual cheerfulness and self-command of her manner. The child was evidently very dear to her. Jane was, indeed, a most interesting

square-made, rosy-cheeked lass, as big again as herself, the dunce and beauty of the school, who had three times cast up a sum of three figures, and three times made the total wrong. Jane ought to have admired the ingenuity evinced by such a variety of error; but she did not; it fairly put her in a passion. She herself was not only clever in figures, but fond of them to an extraordinary degree-luxuriated in Long Division, and revelled in the Rule-ofThree. Had she been a boy, she would probably have been a great mathematician, and have won that fickle, fleeting, shadowy wreath, that crown made of the rainbow, that vainest of all earthly pleasures, but which yet is a pleasure-Fame.

Happier, far happier, was the good, the lowly, the pious child, in her humble duties! Grave and quiet as she seemed, she had many moments of intense and placid enjoyment,

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