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modesty, gave an unexpected elegance to the tinman's daughter. A soft appealing voice, dove-like eyes, a smile rather sweet than gay, a constant desire to please, and a total unconsciousness of her own attractions, were amongst her chief characteristics. Some persons hold the theory that dissimilarity answers best in matrimony, and such persons would have found a most satisfactory contrast of appearance, mind, and manner, between the fair Harriet and her dashing suitor.

Besides this one great and distinguishing quality of assurance and vulgar pretension, which it is difficult to describe by any word short of impudence, Mr. Joseph Hanson was by no means calculated to please the eye of a damsel of seventeen, an age at which a man who owned to five-and-thirty, and who looked and most probably was at least ten years farther advanced on the journey of life, would not fail to be set down as a confirmed old bachelor. He had, too, a large mouth, full of irregular teeth, a head of hair which bore a great resemblance to a wig, and a suspicion of a squint (for it did not quite amount to that odious deformity), which added a most sinister expression to his countenance. Harriet Parsons could not abide him; and I verily believe she would have disliked him just as much, though a certain Frederick Mallet had never been in existence.

How her father, a dissenter, a radical, and a steady tradesman of the old school, who hated puffs and puffery, and finery and fashion, came to be taken in by a man opposed to him in religion and politics, in action and in speech, was a riddle that puzzled half the gossips in Belford. It happened through a mutual enmity, often, (to tell an unpalatable truth of poor human nature) a stronger bond of union than a mutual affection.

Thus it fell out.

Amongst the reforms carried into effect by the town-council, whereof John Parsons was a leading member, was the establishment of an efficient new police to replace the incapable old watchmen, who had hitherto been the sole guardians of life and property in our ancient borough. As far as the principle went, the liberal party were united and triumphant. They split, as liberals are apt to split, upon the rock of detail. It so happened that a turnpike, belonging to one of the roads leading into Belford, had been removed, by order of the commissioners, half a mile farther from the town; half a mile indeed beyond the town boundary; and although there were only three houses, one a beer-shop, and the two others small tenements inhabited by labouring people, between the site of the old turnpike at the end of Prince's Street, and that of the new, at the King's Head Pond, our friend the tinman, who was nothing if not crotchety, insisted with so much pertinacity upon the perambulation of the blue-coated officials appointed for that beat, being extended along

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the highway for the distance aforesaid, that the whole council were set together by the ears, and the measure had very nearly gone by the board in consequence. The imminence of the peril saved them. The danger of reinstating the ancient Dogberrys of the watch, and still worse, of giving a triumph to the tories, brought the reformers to their sensesall except the man of tin, who, becoming only the more confirmed in his own opinion as ally after ally fell off from him, persisted in dividing the council six different times, and had the gratification of finding himself on each of the three last divisions, in a minority of one. He was about to bring forward the question upon a seventh occasion, when a hint as to the propriety in such case of moving a vote of censure against him for wasting the time of the board, caused him to secede from the council in a fury, and to quarrel with the whole municipal body, from the mayor downward.

Now the mayor, a respectable and intelligent attorney, heretofore John Parsons's most intimate friend, happened to have been brought publicly and privately into collision with Mr. Joseph Hanson, who, delighted to find an occasion on which he might at once indulge his aversion to the civic dignitary, and promote the interest of his love-suit, was not content with denouncing the corporation de vive voix, but wrote three grandiloquent letters to the Belford Courant, in which he demonstrated that the welfare of the borough, and the safety of the constitution, depended upon the police parading regularly, by day and by night, along the high road to the King's Head Pond, and that none but a pettifogging chief magistrate, and an incapable town-council, corrupt tools of a corrupt administration, could have¦ had the gratuitous audacity to cause the policeman to turn at the top of Prince's Street, thereby leaving the persons and property of his majesty's liege subjects unprotected and uncared for. He enlarged upon the fact of the tenements in question being occupied by agricultural labourers, a class over whoin, as he observed, the demagogues now in power delighted to tyrannize; and concluded his flourishing appeal to the conservatives of the borough, the county, and the empire at large, by a threat of getting up a petition against the council, and bringing the whole affair before the two Houses of Parliament.

Although this precious epistle was signed Amicus Patriæ, the writer was far too proud of his production to entrench himself behind the inglorious shield of a fictitious signature, and as the mayor, professionally indignant at the epithet pettifogging, threatened both the editor of the Belford Courant and Mr. Joseph Hanson with an action for libel, it followed, as matter of course, that John Parsons not only thought the haberdasher the most able and honest man in the borough, but regarded him

as the champion, if not the martyr, of his cause, and one who deserved everything that he had to bestow, even to the hand and portion of the pretty Harriet.

Affairs were in this posture, when one fine morning the chief magistrate of Belford entered the tinman's shop.

however you and your tools may carry matters at the Town Hall. An Englishman's house is his castle."

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Well," said Mr. Mallet, "I am going. God knows I came out of old friendship towards yourself, and sincere affection for the dear girl your daughter. As to my nephew, besides that I firmly believe the young people like each other, I know him to be as steady a lad as ever drew a conveyance; and with what his father has left him, and what I can give him, to say nothing of his professional prospects, he would be a fit match for Harriet as far as money goes. But if you are determined-"

"Mr. Parsons," said the worthy dignitary, in a very conciliatory tone, "you may be as angry with me as you like, but I find from our good vicar that the fellow Hanson has applied to him for a license, and I cannot let you throw away my little friend Harriet without giving you warning, that a long and bitter repentance will follow such a union. There are emergencies in which it becomes a duty to throw aside professional niceties, and to sacrifice etiquette"Before next week is out, Joseph Hanson to the interests of an old friendship; and I tell you, as a prudent man, that I know of my own knowledge that this intended son-in-law of yours will be arrested before the weddingday.'

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"I'll bail him," said John Parsons, stoutly. "He is not worth a farthing," quoth the chief magistrate.

"I shall give him ten thousand pounds with my daughter," answered the man of pots and kettles.

"I doubt if ten thousand pounds will pay his just debts," rejoined the mayor.

"Then I'll give him twenty," responded the tinman.

"I am determined," roared John Parsons.

shall be my son-in-law. And now, sir, I advise you to go and drill your police." And the tinman retired from behind the counter into the interior of his dwelling, (for this colloquy had taken place in the shop,) banging the door behind him with a violence that really shook the house.

"Poor pretty Harriet!" thought the compassionate chief magistrate, "and poor Frederick too! The end of next week! This is only Monday; something may turn up in that time; we must make inquiries; I had feared that it would have been earlier. My old techy friend here is just the man to have arranged the marriage one day, and had the ceremony performed the next. We must look about us." And full of such cogitations, the

"He has failed in five different places within the last five years," persisted the pertinacious adviser; "has run away from his credit-mayor returned to his habitation. ors, Heaven knows how often; has taken the benefit of the Act time after time! You would not give your own sweet Harriet, the best and prettiest girl in the county, to an adventurer, the history of whose life is to be found in the Gazette and the Insolvent Court, and who is a high churchman and a tory to boot. Surely you would not fling away your daughter and your honest earnings upon a man of notorious bad character, with whom you have not an opinion or a prejudice in common? Just think what the other party will say!"

On the Thursday week after this conversation a coach drew up, about eight o'clock in the morning, at the gate of St. Stephen's churchyard, and Mr. Joseph Hanson, in all the gloss of bridal finery, newly clad from top to toe, smiling and smirking at every instant, jumped down, followed by John Parsons, and prepared to hand out his reluctant bride elect, when Mr. Mallet, with a showylooking middle-aged woman (a sort of feminine of Joseph himself) hanging upon his arm, accosted our friend the tinman.

"Stop!" cried the mayor.

"What for?" inquired John Parsons. "If it's a debt, I've already told you that I'll be his bail."

"It is a debt," responded the chief magistrate; "and one that luckily he must pay, and not you. Three years ago he married this lady at Liverpool. We have the certificate and all the documents."

"I'll tell you what, Mr. Mallet or Mr. Mayor, if you prefer the sound of your new dignity," broke out John Parsons, in a fury, "I shall do what I like with my money and my daughter, without consulting you, or caring what anybody may chance to say, whether whig or tory. For my part, I think there's little to choose between them. One side 's as bad as the other. Tyrants in office and patriots out. If Hanson is a conservative and a churchman, his foreman is a radical and a dissenter; and they neither of them pretend to dictate to their betters, which is more than I can say of some who call themselves reformers. Once for all, I tell you that he shall marry my Harriet, and that your nephew "Four wives!" ejaculated John Parsons, in sha'n't: so now you may arrest him as soon a transport of astonishment and indignation. as you like. I'm not to be managed here," Why the man is an absolute great Turk!

"Yes, sir," added the injured fair one; "and I find that he has another wife in Dublin, and a third at Manchester. I have heard, too, that he ran away with a young lady to Scotland; but that don't count, as he was under age.”

But the thing 's impossible. Come and answer for yourself, Joseph Hanson."

And the tinman turned to look for his intended son-in-law; but frightened at the sight of the fair claimant of his hand and person, the bridegroom had absconded, and John Parsons and the mayor had nothing for it but to rejoin the pretty Harriet, smiling through her tears as she sate with her bridemaiden in the coach at the churchyard-gate.

did his duty to his employers with punctual industry, who was never above his calling, a good son, a good brother, a good husband, and an excellent father, who trained up a large family in the way they should go, and never entered a public-house in his life.

The loss of this invaluable parent, about three years before, had been the only grief that Hannah Colson had known. But as her father, although loving her with the mixture of pride and fondness, which her remarkable beauty, her delightful gaiety, and the accident of her being by many years the youngest of his children, rendered natural, if not excusable, had yet been the only one about her, who had discernment to perceive, and authority to check her little ebullitions of vanity and self

"Well; it's a great escape! and we're for ever obliged to you, Mr. Mayor. Don't cry any more, Harriet. If Frederick was but here, why, in spite of the policeman-but a week hence will do as well; and I am beginning to be of Harriet's mind, that even if he had not had three or four wives, we should be well off to be fairly rid of Mr. Joseph Han-will, she felt, as soon as the first natural tears son, the puffing haberdasher."

THE BEAUTY OF THE VILLAGE.

THREE years ago, Hannah Colson was, beyond all manner of dispute, the prettiest girl in Aberleigh. It was a rare union of face, form, complexion, and expression. Of that just height, which, although certainly tall, would yet hardly be called so, her figure united to its youthful roundness, and still more youthful lightness, an airy flexibility, a bounding grace, and, when in repose, a gentle dignity, which alternately reminded one of a fawn bounding through the forest, or a swan at rest upon the lake. A sculptor would have modelled her for the youngest of the Graces; whilst a painter, caught by the bright colouring of that fair blooming face, the white forehead so vividly contrasted by the masses of dark curls, the jet-black eyebrows, and long rich eyelashes which shaded her finely-cut grey eye, and the pearly teeth disclosed by the scarlet lips, whose every movement was an unconscious smile, would doubtless have selected her for the very goddess of youth. Beyond all question, Hannah Colson, at eighteen, was the beauty of Aberleigh, and, unfortunately, no inhabitant of that populous village was more thoroughly aware that she was so than the fair damsel herself.

Her late father, good Master Colson, had been all his life a respectable and flourishing master bricklayer in the place. Many a man with less pretensions to the title would call himself a builder now-a-days, or, "by'r lady," an architect, and put forth a flaming card, vaunting his accomplishments in the mason's craft, his skill in plans and elevations, and his unparalleled dispatch and cheapness in carrying his designs into execution. But John Colson was no new-fangled personage. plain honest tradesman was our bricklayer, and thoroughly of the old school; one who

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were wiped away, that a restraint had been removed, and, scarcely knowing why, was too soon consoled for the greatest misfortune that could possibly have befallen one so dangerously gifted. Her mother was a kind, good, gentle woman, who having by necessity worked hard in the early part of her life, still continued the practice, partly from inclination, partly from a sense of duty, and partly from mere habit; and amongst her many excellent qualities had the Ailie Dinmont propensity of giving all her children their own way, especially this the blooming cadette of the family: and her eldest brother, a bachelor,

who, succeeding to his father's business, took his place as master of the house, retaining his surviving parent as its mistress, and his pretty sister as something between a plaything and a pet; both in their several ways seemed vying with each other as to which should most thoroughly humour and indulge the lovely creature whom nature had already done her best or her worst to spoil to their hands.

Her other brothers and sisters, married and dispersed over the country, had of course no authority, even if they had wished to assume anything like power over the graceful and charming young woman whom every one belonging to her felt to be an object of pride and delight; so that their presents, and caresses, and smiling invitations, aided in strengthening Hannah's impression, poor girl though she were, that her little world, the small horizon of her own secluded hamlet, was made for her, and for her only; and if this persuasion had needed any additional confirmation, such confirmation would have been found in the universal admiration of the| village beaux, and the envy, almost as general, of the village belles,-particularly in the

Eh, poor things, what else have I to give them ?” i This reply of Ailie Dinmont, and indeed her whole sweet character, short though it be, has always | vels-finer even, because so much tenderer, than the seemed to me the finest sketch in the Waverley No bold and honest Jeannie Deans.

latter; the envy of rival beauties being, as everybody knows, of all flatteries the most piquant and seducing-in a word, the most genuine and real.

The only person from whom Hannah Colson ever heard that rare thing called truth, was her friend and school-fellow, Lucy Meadows, a young woman two or three years older than herself in actual age, and half a lifetime more advanced in the best fruits of mature age, in clearness of judgment, and steadiness of conduct.

A greater contrast of manner and character than that exhibited between the light-headed and light-hearted beauty, and her mild and quiet companion, could hardly be imagined. Lucy was pretty too, very pretty; but it was the calm, sedate, composed expression, the pure alabaster complexion, the soft dove-like eye, the general harmony and delicacy of feature and of form that we so often observe in a female Friend; and her low gentle voice, her retiring deportment, and Quaker-like simplicity of dress, were in perfect accordance with that impression. Her clearness of intellect, also, and rectitude of understanding, were such as are often found amongst that intelligent race of people; although there was an intuitive perception of character and motive, a fineness of observation under that demure and modest exterior, that, if Lucy had ever in her life been ten miles from her native village, might have been called knowledge of the world.

How she came by this quality, which some women seem to possess by instinct, Heaven only knows! Her early gravity of manner, and sedateness of mind, might be more easily accounted for. Poor Lucy was an orphan, and had from the age of fourteen been called upon to keep house for her only brother, a young man of seven or eight-and-twenty, well to do in the world, who, as the principal carpenter of Aberleigh, had had much intercourse with the Colsons in the way of business, and was on the most friendly terms with the whole family.

which, turned as it was to the purposes of his own trade, rendered him a most ingenious and dexterous mechanic; and which only needed the spur of emulation, or the still more active stimulus of personal ambition, to procure for him high distinction in any line to which his extraordinary faculty of invention and combination might be applied.

Ambition, however, he had none. He was happily quite free from that tormenting taskmaster, who, next perhaps to praise, makes the severest demand on human faculty and human labour. To maintain in the spot where he was born, the character for honesty, independence, and industry, that his father had borne before him; to support in credit and comfort the sister whom he loved so well, and one whom he loved still better, formed the safe and humble boundary of his wishes. But with the contrariety with which fortune so often seems to pursue those who do not follow her, his success far outstripped his moderate desires. The neighbouring gentlemen soon discovered his talent. Employment poured in upon him. His taste proved to be equal to his skill; and from the ornamental out-door work-the Swiss cottages, and fancy dairies, the treillage and the rustic seats belonging to a great country place, to the most delicate mouldings of the boudoir and the saloon, nothing went well that wanted the guiding eye and finishing hand of James Meadows. The best workmen were proud to be employed by him; the most respectable yeomen offered their sons as his apprentices; and without any such design on his part, our village carpenter was in a fair way to become one of the wealthiest tradesmen in the county.

His personal character and peculiarly modest and respectful manners, contributed not a little to his popularity with his superiors. He was a fair, slender young man, with a pale complexion, a composed, but expressive, countenance, a thoughtful, deep-set, grey eye, and a remarkably fine head, with a profusion of curling brown hair, which gave a distinguished air to his whole appearance; so that he was With one branch of that family, James constantly taken by strangers for a gentleman; Meadows would fain have been upon terms and the gentle propriety with which he was nearer and dearer than those of friendship. accustomed to correct the mistake, was such Even before John Colson's death, his love for as seldom failed to heighten the estimation of Hannah, although not openly avowed, had the individual, whilst it set them right as to been the object of remark to the whole vil- his station. Hannah Colson, with all her lage; and it is certain that the fond and anx-youthful charms, might think herself a lucky ious father found his last moments soothed by the hope that the happiness and prosperity of his favourite child were secured by the attachment of one so excellent in character and respectable in situation.

James Meadows was indeed a man to whom any father would have confided his dearest and loveliest daughter with untroubled confidence. He joined to the calm good sense and quiet observation that distinguished his sister, an inventive and constructive power,

damsel in securing the affections of such a lover as this; and that she did actually think so was the persuasion of those who knew her best-of her mother, of her brother William, and of Lucy Meadows; although the coy, fantastic beauty, shy as a ring-dove, wild as a fawn of the forest, was so far from confessing any return of affection, that, whilst suffering his attentions, and accepting his escort to the rural gaieties which beseemed her age, she would now profess, even while hang

ing on his arm, her intention of never marrying, and now coquet before his eyes with some passing admirer whom she had never seen before. She took good care, however, not to go too far in her coquetry, or to flirt twice with the same person; and so contrived to temper her resolutions against matrimony with "nods and becks and wreathed smiles," that, modest as he was by nature, and that natural modesty enhanced by the diffidence which belongs to a deep and ardent passion, James Meadows himself saw no real cause for fear in the pretty petulance of his fair mistress, in a love of power so full of playful grace, that it seemed rather a charm than a fault, and in a blushing reluctance to change her maiden state, and lose her maiden freedom, which had, in his eyes, all the attractions of youthful shamefacedness. That she would eventually be his own dear wife, James entertained no manner of doubt; and, pleased with all that pleased her, was not unwilling to prolong the happy days of courtship.

In this humour Lucy had left him, when, towards the end of May, she had gone for the first time to spend a few weeks with some relations in London. Her cousins were kind and wealthy; and, much pleased with the modest intelligence of their young kinswoman, they exerted themselves to render their house agreeable to her, and to show her the innumerable sights of the Queen of Cities. So that her stay, being urged by James, who, thoroughly unselfish, rejoiced to find his sister so well amused, was prolonged to the end of July, when, alarmed at the total cessation of letters from Hannah, and at the constrained and dispirited tone which she discovered, or fancied that she discovered, in her brother's, Lucy resolved to hasten home.

He received her with his usual gentle kindness and his sweet and thoughtful smile; assured her that he was well; exerted himself more than usual to talk, and waived away her anxious questions by extorting from her an account of her journey, and her residence, of all that she had seen, and of her own feelings on returning to her country home after so long a sojourn in the splendid and beautiful metropolis. He talked more than was usual with him; and more gaily; but still Lucy was dissatisfied. The hand that had pressed her's on alighting was cold as death; the lip that had kissed her fair brow was pale and trembling; his appetite was gone; and his frequent and apparently unconscious habit of pushing away the clustering curls from his forehead, proved, as plainly as words could have done, that there was pain in the throbbing temples. The pulsation was even visible; but still he denied that he was ill, and declared that her notion of his having grown thin and pale was nothing but a woman's fancy, the fond whim of a fond sister.

To escape from the subject he took her into

the garden, - her own pretty flower-garden, divided by a wall covered with creepers from the larger plot of ground devoted to vegetables, and bounded on one side by buildings connected with his trade, and parted on the other from a well-stored timber-yard, by a beautiful rustic screen of fir and oak and birch, with the bark on, which, terminating in a graceful curve at the end next the house, and at that leading to the garden in a projecting gothic porch, partly covered by climbing plants, partly broken by tall pyramidical hollyhocks, and magnificent dahlias, and backed by a clump of tall elms, formed a most graceful veil to an unsightly object. This screen had been erected during Lucy's absence, and without her knowledge; and her brother, smiling at the delight which she expressed, pointed out to her the splendid beauty of her flowers, and the luxuriant profusion of their growth.

The old buildings matted with roses, honeysuckles, and jessamines, broken only by the pretty out-door room which Lucy called her green-house; the pile of variously-tinted geraniums in front of that prettiest room; the wall garlanded, covered, hidden with interwoven myrtles, fuchsias, passion-flowers, clematis, and the silky blossoms of the grandiflora pea; the beds filled with dahlias, salvias, calceolarias, and carnations of every hue, with the rich purple and the pure white petunia, with the many-coloured marvel of Peru, with the enamelled blue of the Siberian larkspur, with the richly-scented changeable lupine, with the glowing lavatera, the dark-eyed hybiscus, the pure and alabaster cup of the white cenothera, the lilac clusters of the phlox, and the delicate blossom of the yellow sultan, most elegant amongst flowers; all these, with a hundred other plants too long to name, and all their various greens, and the pet weed mignionette growing like grass in a meadow, and mingling its aromatic odour amongst the general fragrance-all this sweetness and beauty glowing in the evening sun, and breathing of freshness and of cool air, came with such a thrill of delight upon the poor village maiden; who, in spite of her admiration of London, had languished in its heat and noise and dirt, for the calm and quiet, the green leaves and the bright flowers of her country home, that, from the very fulness of her heart, from joy and gratitude and tenderness and anxiety, she flung her arms round her brother's neck, and burst into tears.

Lucy was usually so calm and self-commanded, that such an ebullition of feeling from her astonished and affected James Meadows more than any words, however tender. He pressed her to his heart, and when, following up the train of her own thoughts,sure that this kind brother, who had done so much to please her, was himself unhappy, guessing, and longing, and yet fearing to know the cause,-when Lucy, agitated by

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