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ful experience, that Rosedale was uninhabitable, was the proprietor, a simple young man from the next town, who unluckily took it into his head that he had a taste for architecture and landscape gardening, and so forth; and falling into the hands of a London upholsterer and a country nurseryman, produced the effort of genius that I have endeavoured to describe. At the end of a month he found that nobody could live there; and with the advice of the nurseryman and the upholsterer began to talk of re-building and new-modelling; nay, he actually went so far as to send for the bricklayer; but fortunately for our man of taste he had a wife of more sense than himself, who seized the moment of disappointment to disgust him with improvements and improvers, in which feat she was greatly aided by the bills of his late associates; put a stop at once to his projects and his complaints: removed with all speed to their old residence, an ugly, roomy, comfortable red brick house in the market-place at B-; drew up a flaming advertisement, and turned the grumbling occupant into a thriving landlord. Lucky for him was the day in which William Walker, Esquire, married Miss Bridget Tomkins, second daughter of Mr. Samuel Tomkins, attorney at law! And lucky for Mr. Samuel Tomkins was the hour in which he acquired a son-in-law more profitable in the article of leases than the two lords to whom he acted as steward both put together!

First on the list of tenants was a bride and bridegroom come to spend the early months of their nuptial life in this sweet retirement. They arrived towards the end of August with a great retinue of servants, horses, dogs, and carriages, well bedecked with bridal favours. The very pointers had white ribbons round their necks, so splendid was their rejoicing, and had each, as we were credibly informed, eaten a huge slice of wedding-cake when the happy couple returned from church. The bride, whom every body except myself called plain, and whom I thought pretty, had been a great heiress, and had married for love the day she came of age. She was slight of form and pale of complexion, with a profusion of brown hair, mild hazel eyes, a sweet smile, a soft voice, and an air of modesty that clung about her like a veil. I never saw a more loveable creature. He was dark and tall and stout and bold, with an assured yet gentlemanly air, a loud voice, a confident manner, and a real passion for shooting. They stayed just a fortnight, during which time he contrived to get warned off half the manors in the neighbourhood, and cut down the finest elm in the lawn one wet morning to open a view of the high road. I hope the marriage has turned out a happy one, for she was a sweet gentle creature. I used to see her leaning over the gate watching his return from shooting with such a fond patience! And her

bound to meet him when he did appear! And the pretty coaxing playfulness with which she patted and chided her rivals the dogs! Oh I hope she is happy! but I fear, I fear.

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Next succeeded a couple from India, before whom floated reports golden and gorgeous as the clouds at sunset. Inexhaustible riches; profuse expenditure; tremendous ostentation; unheard-of luxury; ortolans; beccaficos French-beans at Christmas; green-peas at Easter; strawberries always; a chariot and six; twelve black footmen; and parrots and monkeys beyond all count. These were amongst the most moderate of the rumours that preceded them; and every idle person in the country was preparing to be a hanger-on; and every strop-keeper in B. on the watch for a customer; when up drove a quiet-looking old gentleman in a pony-chaise, with a quietlooking old lady at his side, and took possession, their retinue following in a hack postchaise. Whether the habits of this Eastern Croesus corresponded with his modest debût, or his magnificent reputation, we had not time to discover, although from certain indications, I conceive that much might be said on both sides. They arrived in the middle of a fine October, while the China roses covered the walls, and the China-asters, and dahlias, and fuchsias, and geraniums in full blow, gave a summer brilliancy to the lawn; but scarcely had a pair of superb Common-prayer-books, bound in velvet, and a bible with gold clasps entered in possession of the pew at church, before "there came a frost, a nipping frost," which turned the China-asters, and the Chinaroses brown, and the dahlias and geraniums black, and the nabob and the nabobess blue. They disappeared the next day, and have never been seen or heard of since.

Then arrived a fox-hunting Baronet, with a splendid stud and a splendid fortune. A young man, a single man, a handsome man! Every speculating mamma in the country fixed her eyes on Sir Robert for a son-in-law; papas were sent to call; brothers were enjoined to go out hunting, and get acquainted; nay, even certain of the young ladies themselves (I grieve to say it!) showed symptoms of condescension which might almost have made their grandmothers start from their graves. But what could they do? How could they help it, poor pretty things? The Baronet, with the instinct of a determined bachelor, avoided a young lady as a sparrow does a hawk, and discovering this shyness, they followed their instinct as the hawk would do in a similar case, and pursued the coy bird. It was what sportsmen call a fine open season, which being translated, means every variety of wintry weather except frost-dirty, foggy, sleety, wet; so such of our belles as looked well on horse-back, took the opportunity to ride, to cover and see the hounds throw off; and such as shone more as pedestrians would

take an early walk, exquisitely dressed, for their health's sake, towards the general rendezvous. Still Sir Robert was immovable. He made no morning calls, accepted no invitations, spoke to no mortal till he had ascertained that there was neither sister, daughter, aunt, nor cousin in the case. He kept from every petticoat as if it contained the contagion of the plague, shunned ball-rooms and drawing-rooms, as if they were pest-houses, and finally, had the comfort of leaving Rosedale without having even bowed to a female during his stay. The final cause of his departure has been differently reported; some hold that he was frightened away by Miss Amelia Singleton, who had nearly caused him to commit involuntary homicide, (is that the word for killing a woman?) by crossing and recrossing before his hunter in Sallow-field-lane, thereby putting him in danger of a coroner's inquest; whilst others assert that his landlord, Mr. Walker, happening to call one day, found his tenant in dirty boots on the sphynx sofa, and a Newfoundland dog, dripping with mud, on the crocodile, couch, and gave him notice to quit on the spot. For my part I regard this legend as altogether apocryphal, invented to save the credit of the house by assuming that one of its many inhabitants was turned out, contrary to his own wish. My faith goes entirely with the Miss Amelia version of the history; the more so, as that gentle damsel was so inconsolable as to marry a former beau, a small Squire of the neighbourhood, rather weather-beaten, and not quite so young as he had been, within a month after she had the ill luck not to be run over by Sir Robert. However that may have been," thence ensued a vacancy" in Rosedale, which was supplied the same week by a musical family, a travelling band, drums, trumpets, harps, pianos, violins, violincellos, trombones, and German flutes-noise personified! an incarnation of din! The family consisted of three young ladies who practised regularly six hours a day; a governess who played on some instrument or other from morning till night; one fluting brother; one fiddling ditto; a violincelloing music-master; and a singing papa. The only quiet person among them, the "one poor half-penny-worth of bread to this monstrous quantity of sack," was the unfortunate mamma, sole listener, as it seemed, of her innumerous choir. Oh, how we pitied her! She was a sweet placid-looking woman, and younger in appearance than either of her daughters, with a fair open forehead, full dark eyes, lips that seemed waiting to smile, a deep yet cool colour, and a heavenly composure of countenance, resembling in features, expression, and complexion, the small Madonnas of Raphael. We never ceased to wonder at her happy serenity until we found out that the good lady was deaf, a discovery which somewhat diminished the ardour of our admiration.

How this enviable calamity befell her, I did not hear, but of course that din! The very jars and mandarins cracked under the incessant vibration; I only wonder that the poor house did not break the drum of its ears; did not burst from its own report, and explode like an overloaded gun. One could not see that unlucky habitation half a mile off, without such a feeling of noise as comes over one in looking at Hogarth's enraged musician. To pass it was really dangerous. One stagecoach was overturned, and two post-chaises ran away in consequence of their uproarious doings; and a sturdy old-fashioned country gentleman, who rode a particularly anti-musical, startlish, blood-horse, began to talk of indicting Rosedale as a nuisance, when just at the critical moment, its tenants had the good fortune to discover, that although the hermitage with its vaulted roof made a capital concert-room, yet that there was not space enough within doors for their several practisings, that the apartments were too small, and the partitions too thin, so that concord was turned into discord, and harmonies went crossing each other all over the house-Mozart jostled by Rossini, and Handel put down by Weber. And away they went also.

Our next neighbours were two ladies, not sisters, except as one of them said in soul; kindred spirits determined to retire from the world, and emulate in this sweet retreat the immortal friendship of the ladies of Llangollen.* The names of our pair of friends were Jackson and Jennings, Miss Laura Jackson (1 wonder whether Laura really was her name! She signed herself so in prose and in verse, and would certainly for more reasons than one have disliked an appeal to the Register! besides, she ought to know; so Laura it shall be!) Miss Laura Jackson and Miss Barbara Jennings, commonly called Bab. Both were of that unfortunate class of young ladies, whom the malicious world is apt to call old maids; both rich, both independent, and both in the fullest sense of the word cockneys. Laura was tall and lean, and scraggy and yellow, dressing in an Arcadian sort of way, pretty much like an opera shepherdess without a crook, singing pastoral songs prodigiously out of tune, and talking in a deep voice, with much emphasis and astounding fluency all sorts of sentimentalities all the day long.

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*I need not, I trust, disclaim any intention of casting the lightest shade of ridicule on the remarkable instance of female friendship to which I have alluded from youth to age, adorned by rank, talent, and beauty, cemented by cheerfulness and good-humour, and consecrated by benevolence and virtue, can fear no one's censure, and soars far beyond my feeble praise. Such a friendship is the very poetry of life. But the and elevating romance, is surely fair game, the more heartless imitation, the absurd parody of the noble so, as it tends like all parodies to bring the original into undeserved disrepute.

An union enduring as that has done,

The next day saw Miss Laura obliged to infringe her own most sacred and inviolable rule, and admit a man-the apothecary—into this maiden abode. She had sate under a tree the night before listening not to, but for a nightingale, and was laid up by a most unpastoral fit of the rheumatism. Barbara in the meanwhile was examining her territory by day-light, and discovering fresh cause of vexation at every step. Here she was in the country, in a cottage "comprising," as the advertisement set forth, "all manner of convenience and accommodation," without grass or corn, or cow or sheep, or pig or chicken, or turkey or goose ;-no laundry, no brew-house, no pig-stye, no poultry-yard! not a cabbage in the garden! not a useful thing about the house! Imagine her consternation!

Miss Barbara on the other hand was short and | Miss Barbara underwent an embrassade; and plump and round-faced and ruddy, inclining having sufficiently admired the wonders withto vulgarity as Laura to affectation, with a in they sallied forth with a candle and langreat love of dancing, a pleasant chuckling thorn to view their ruralities without. Miss laugh, and a most agreeable habit of assenta- Laura was better satisfied with this ramble tion. Altogether Bab was a likeable person than her companion. She found at least trees in spite of some nonsense, which is more than and primroses, whilst the country felicities of could honestly be said for her companion. ducks and chickens were entirely wanting. Juxtaposition laid the corner-stone of this Bab, however, reconciled the matter by supimmortal friendship, which had already lasted posing they were gone to roost, and a little four months and a half, and cemented by re- worn out by the journey wisely followed their semblance of situation, and dissimilarity of example. character, really bade fair to continue some months longer. Both had been heartily weary of their previous situations: Laura keeping house for a brother in Aldersgate-street, where as she said she was overwhelmed by odious vulgar business; Barbara living with an aunt on Fish-street Hill, where she was tired to death of having nothing to do. Both had a passion for the country. Laura, who, except one jaunt to Margate, had never been out of the sound of Bow-bell, that she might ruralize after the fashion of the poets, sit under trees and gather roses all day long; Bab, who in spite of yearly trips to Paris and Brussels and Amsterdam and Brighton, had hardly seen a green field except through a coach-window, was on her side possessed with a mania for notability and management; she yearned to keep cows, fatten pigs, breed poultry, grow cabbages, make hay, brew and bake, and wash and churn. Visions of killing her own mutton flitted over her delighted fancy; and when one evening at a ball in the Borough her favourite partner had deserted her to dance with her niece, and Miss Laura, who had been reading Miss Seward's letters, proposed to her to retire from the world and its vanities in imitation of the illustrious recluses of Llangollen, Miss Barbara, caught above all things with the prospect of making her own butter every morning for breakfast,* acceded to the proposal most joyfully.

The vow of friendship was taken, and nothing remained but to look out for a house. Barbara wanted a farm, Laura a cottage; Barbara talked of cows and clover, Laura of nightingales and violets; Barbara sighed for Yorkshire pastures, Laura for Welsh mountains; and the scheme seemed likely to go off for want of an habitation, when Rosedale in all the glory of advertisement shone on Miss Laura in the Morning Post, and was immediately engaged by the delighted friends on a lease of seven, fourteen, or one-and-twenty years.

It was a raw blowy March evening, when the fair partners arrived at the cottage. Miss Laura made a speech in her usual style on taking possession, an invocation to friendship and rural nature, and a deprecation of cities, society and men; at the conclusion of which

* Vide Anna Seward's Correspondence.

But Barbara was a person of activity and resource. She sallied out forthwith to the neighbouring village, bought utensils and live stock; turned the coach-house into a cowstall; projected a pig-sty in the rosery; installed her ducks and geese in the orangery; introduced the novelty of real milk-pans, churns and butter-prints amongst the old china, Dutch-tiles and stained glass of that make-believe toy the Gothic dairy; placed her brewing vessels in the housekeeper's room,' which to accord with the genius of the place had been fitted up to represent a robber's cave; deposited her washing-tubs in the butler's pantry, which with a similar regard to congruity had been decorated with spars and shells like a Nereid's grotto; and finally, in spite of all warning and remonstrance, drove her sheep into the shrubbery, and tethered her cows upon the lawn.

This last stroke was too much for the gardener's patience. He betook himself in all haste to B. to apprise Mr. Walker; and Mr. Walker armed with Mr. Samuel Tompkins and a copy of the lease made his appearance with breathless speed at Rosedale. Barbara, in spite of her usual placidity, made good battle on this occasion. She cried and scolded and reasoned and implored; it was as much as Mr. Walker, and Mr. Samuel Tomkins, aided by their mute witness the lease, and that very clamorous auxiliary the gardener, could do to out-talk her. At last, however, they were victorious. Poor Miss Bab's live stock were forced to make a rapid retreat, and

she would probably have marched off at the same time, had not an incident occurred which brought her visions of rural felicity much nearer to reality than could have been anticipated by the liveliest imagination.

The farmer's wife of whom she had made her purchases, and to whom she unwillingly addressed herself to resume them, seeing to use her own words, "how much Madam seemed to take on at parting with the poor dumb things," kindly offered to accommodate them as boarders at a moderate stipend, volunteering also lessons in the chicken-rearing and pig-feeding department, of which the lady did to be sure stand rather in need.

Of course Barbara closed with this proposal at a word. She never was so happy in her life; her cows, pigs, and poultry, en pension, close by, where she might see them every hour if she liked, and she herself with both hands full, learning at the farm, and ordering at the cottage, and displaying all that can be imagined of ignorance and good-humour at both.

Her mistakes were innumerable. Once for instance, she carried away by main force from a turkey, whose nest she had the ill-luck to discover, thirteen eggs, just ready to hatch, and after a severe combat with the furious and injured hen, brought them home to Rosedale as fresh-laid-under a notion rather new in natural history, that turkeys lay all their eggs in one day. Another time she discovered a hoard of choice double-dahlia roots in a toolhouse belonging to her old enemy the gardener, and delivered them to the cook for Jerusalem artichokes, who dressed them as such accordingly. No end to Barbara's blunders! but her good-humour, her cheerfulness, her liberality, and the happy frankness with which she laughed at her own mistakes, carried her triumphantly through. Every body liked her, especially a smug little curate who lodged at the very farm-house where her pigs and cattle were boarded, and said twenty times a day that Miss Barbara Jennings was the pleasantest woman in England. Barbara was never so happy in her life.

Miss Laura, on her part, continued rheumatic and poorly, and kept closely to her bedchamber, the Turkish tent, with no other consolations than novels from the next town and the daily visits of the apothecary. She was shocked at Miss Barbara's intimacy with the farm people, and took every opportunity of telling her so. Barbara, never very fond of her fair companion's harangues, and not the more reconciled to them from their being directed against her own particular favourites, ran away as often as she could. So that the two friends had nearly arrived at the point of not speaking, when they met one afternoon by mutual appointment in the Chinese saloon. Miss Barbara blushed and looked silly, and seemed trying to say something which she

could not bring out. Miss Laura tried to blush rather unsuccessfully. She however could talk at all times, her powers of speech were never known to fail; and at the end of an oration in which she proved, as was pretty evident, that they had been mistaken in supposing the company of each all-sufficient to the other as well as in their plan of seclusion from the world, she invited Miss Barbara, after another vain attempt at a blush, to pay the last honours to their friendship by attending her to the hymeneal altar, whither she had promised to accompany Mr. Opodeldoc on the morning after the next.

“I can't,” replied Miss Barbara. "And why not?" resumed Miss Laura. "Surely Mr. Opodel

"Now, don't be angry!" interrupted our friend Bab. "I can't be your bridemaid the day after to-morrow, because I am going to be married to-morrow myself."

And so they left Rosedale, and I shall leave them.

WALKS IN THE COUNTRY.

THE FALL OF THE LEAF.

Nov. 6.-The weather is as peaceful to-day, as calm, and as mild, as in early April; and, perhaps, an autumn afternoon and a spring morning do resemble each other more in feeling, and even in appearance, than any two periods of the year. There is in both the same freshness and dewiness of the herbage; the same balmy softness in the air; and the same pure and lovely blue sky, with white fleecy clouds floating across it. The chief difference lies in the absence of flowers, and the presence of leaves. But then the foliage of November is so rich, and glowing, and varied, that it may well supply the place of the gay blossoms of the spring; whilst all the flowers of the field or the garden could never make amends for the want of leavesthat beautiful and graceful attire in which nature has clothed the rugged forms of treesthe verdant drapery to which the landscape owes its loveliness, and the forests their glory.

If choice must be between two seasons, each so full of charm, it is at least no bad philosophy to prefer the present good, even whilst looking gratefully back, and hopefully forward to the past and the future. And, of a surety, no fairer specimen of a November day could well be found than this, a day made to wander

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where the scenery, without rising into gran- | pheasant! a superb cock-pheasant! Nothing deur or breaking into wildness, is so peaceful, is more certain than Dash's questing, whether so cheerful, so varied, and so thoroughly English.

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We must bend our steps towards the water side, for I have a message to leave at Farmer Riley's and sooth to say, it is no unpleasant necessity; for the road thither is smooth and dry, retired, as one likes a country walk to be, but not too lonely, which women never like; leading past the Loddon-the bright, brimming, transparent Loddon-a fitting mirror for the bright blue sky, and terminating at one of the prettiest and most comfortable farmhouses in the neighbourhood.

How beautiful the lane is to-day, decorated with a thousand colours! The brown road, and the rich verdure that borders it, strewed with the pale yellow leaves of the elm, just beginning to fall; hedge-rows glowing with long wreaths of the bramble in every variety of purplish red; and overhead the unchanged green of the fir, contrasting with the spotted sycamore, the tawny beech, and the dry sere leaves of the oak, which rustle as the light wind passes through them: a few common hardy yellow flowers (for yellow is the common colour of flowers, whether wild or culti vated, as blue is the rare one,) flowers of many sorts, but almost of one tint, still blowing in spite of the season, and ruddy berries glowing through all. How very beautiful is the lane! And how pleasant is this hill where the road widens, with the group of cattle by the way side, and George Hearn, the little postboy, trundling his hoop at full speed, making all the better haste in his work, because he cheats himself into thinking it play! And how beautiful again, is this patch of common at the hill top with the clear pool, where Martha Pither's children,-elves of three, and four, and five years old, without any distinction of sex in their sunburnt faces and tattered drapery, are dipping up water in their little homely cups shining with cleanliness, and a small brown pitcher with the lip broken, to fill that great kettle, which, when it is filled, their united strength will never be able to lift! They are quite a group for a painter, with their rosy cheeks, and chubby hands, and round merry faces; and the low cottage in the back-ground, peeping out of its vine-leaves and China-roses, with Martha at the door, tidy, and comely, and smiling, preparing the potatoes for the pot, and watching the progress of dipping and filling that useful utensil, completes the picture.

But we must get on. No time for more sketches in these short days. It is getting cold too. We must proceed in our walk. | Dash is showing us the way and beating the thick double hedge-row that runs along the side of the meadows, at a rate that indicates game astir, and causes the leaves to fly as fast as an east wind after a hard frost. Ah! a

in a hedge-row or a covert, for a better spaniel never went into the field; but I fancied that it was a hare afoot, and was almost as much startled to hear the whirring of those splendid wings, as the princely bird himself would have been at the report of a gun. Indeed, I believe, that the way in which a pheasant goes off, does sometimes make young sportsmen a little nervous (they don't own it very readily, but the observation may be relied on nevertheless,) until they get as it were broken into the sound; and then that grand and sudden burst of wing becomes as pleasant to them as it seems to be to Dash, who is beating the hedge-row with might and main, and giving tongue louder, and sending the leaves about faster than ever-very proud of finding the pheasant, and perhaps a little angry with me for not shooting it; at least looking as if he would be angry if I were a man; for Dash is a dog of great sagacity, and has doubtless not lived four years in the sporting world without making the discovery, that although gentlemen do shoot, ladies do not.

The Loddon at last! the beautiful Loddon ! and the bridge where every one stops, as by instinct, to lean over the rails, and gaze a moment on a landscape of surpassing loveliness, the fine grounds of the Great House with their magnificent groups of limes, and firs, and poplars grander than ever poplars were; the green meadows opposite, studded with oaks and elms; the clear winding river; the mill with its picturesque old buildings bounding the scene; all glowing with the rich colouring of autumn, and harmonized by the soft beauty of the clear blue sky, and the delicious calmness of the hour. The very peasant whose daily path it is, cannot cross that bridge without a pause.

But the day is wearing fast, and it grows colder and colder. I really think it will be a frost. After all, spring is the pleasantest season, beautiful as this scenery is. We must get on. Down that broad yet shadowy lane, between the park, dark with evergreens and dappled with deer, and the meadows, where sheep, and cows, and horses, are grazing under the tall elms; that lane, where the wild bank clothed with fern, and tufted with furze, and crowned by rich-berried thorn, and thick shining holly on the one side, seems to vie in beauty with the picturesque old paling, the bright laurels, and the plumy cedars, on the other;-down that shady lane, until the sudden turn brings us to an opening where four roads meet, where a noble avenue turns down to the Great House; where the village church rears its modest spire from amidst its venerable yew-trees; and where, embosomed in orchards and gardens, and backed by barns and ricks, and all the wealth of the farm-yard, stands the spacious and comfortable abode of

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