daughter. A little difficulty he may have to encounter; the lass will be coy for a while; the mother will talk of their youth, the father of their finances; but the marriage, I doubt not, will ensue.

really sorry when you die, whether by a fall from a cart or otherwise, keep from the alehouse!

Next comes the tall thin red house, that ought to boast genteeler inmates than its short fat mistress, its children, its pigs, and its quantity of noise, happiness, and vulgarity. The din is greater than ever. The husband, a merry jolly tar, with a voice that sounds as if issuing from a speaking-trumpet, is returned from a voyage to India; and another little one, a chubby roaring boy, has added his lusty cries to the family concert.

Next in order, on the other side of the street, is the blacksmith's house. Change has been busy here in a different and more awful form. Our sometime constable, the tipsiest of parish officers, of blacksmiths and of men, is dead. Returning from a revel with a companion as full of beer as himself, one or the other, or both, contrived to overset the cart in a ditch; (the living scapegrace is pleased to lay the This door, blockaded by huge bales of blame of the mishap on the horse, but that is goods, and half darkened by that moving contrary to all probability, this respectable mountain, the tilted wagon of the S. mill, quadruped being a water drinker;) and inward which stands before it, belongs to the village bruises, acting on inflamed blood and an im- shop. Increase has been here too in every paired constitution, carried him off in a very shape. Within fourteen months two little, short time, leaving an ailing wife and eight pretty, quiet girls, have come into the world. children, the eldest of whom is only fourteen Before Fanny could well manage to totter years of age. This sounds like a very tragi- across the road to her good friend the nymph cal story; yet, perhaps, because the loss of a of the shoe-shop, Margaret made her appeardrunken husband is not quite so great a ca- ance; and poor Fanny, discarded at once from lamity as the loss of a sober one, the effect of the maid's arms and her mother's knee, dethis event is not altogether so melancholy as graded from the rank and privileges of "the might be expected. The widow, when she baby," (for at that age precedence is strangely was a wife, had a complaining broken-spirited reversed,) would have had a premature foreair, a peevish manner, a whining voice, a dis- taste of the instability of human felicity, had mal countenance, and a person so neglected she not taken refuge with that best of nurses, and slovenly, that it was difficult to believe a fond father. Every thing thrives about the that she had once been remarkably handsome. shop, from the rosy children to the neat maid She is now quite another woman. The very and the smart apprentice. No room now for first Sunday she put on her weeds, we all ob- lodgers, and no need! The young mantuaserved how tidy and comfortable she looked; making school-mistresses, the old inmates, are how much her countenance, in spite of a de- gone; one of them not very far. She grew cent show of tears, was improved, and how tired of scolding little boys and girls about completely through all her sighings her tone their A, B, C, and of being scolded in her turn! had lost its peevishness. I have never seen by their sisters and mothers about pelisses and her out of spirits or out of humour since. She gowns; so she gave up both trades about a talks and laughs and bustles about, managing year ago, and has been ever since our pretty her journeymen and scolding her children as Harriet. I do not think she has ever repented notably as any dame in the parish. The very of the exchange, though it might not perhaps house looks more cheerful; she has cut down have been made so soon, had not her elder the old willow trees that stood in the court, sister, who had been long engaged to an atand let in the light; and now the sun glances tendant at one of the colleges of Oxford, brightly from the casement windows, and thought herself on the point of marriage just plays amidst the vine-leaves and the clusters as our housemaid left us. Poor Betsy! She of grapes which cover the walls; the door is had fared the fate of many a prouder maiden, ' newly painted, and shines like the face of its wearing out her youth in expectation of the mistress; even the forge has lost half its din- promotion that was to authorise her union giness. Every thing smiles. She indeed talks with the man of her heart. Many a year had by fits of "poor George," especially when she waited in smiling constancy, fond of Wilany allusion to her old enemy, mine host of liam in no common measure, and proud of the Rose, brings the deceased to her memory; him, as well she might be; for, when the vacathen she bewails (as is proper) her dear hus-tion so far lessened his duties as to render a band and her desolate condition; calls herself short absence practicable, and he stole up here a lone widow; sighs over her eight children; for a few days to enjoy her company, it was complains of the troubles of business, and tries difficult to distinguish him in air and manner, to persuade herself and others that she is as as he sauntered about in elegant indolence wretched as a good wife ought to be. But with his fishing-rod and his flute, from the this will not do. She is a happier woman young Oxonians his masters. At last promothan she has been any time these fifteen years, tion came; and Betsy, apprised of it, by an and she knows it. My dear village-husbands, affectionate and congratulatory letter from his if you have a mind that your wives should be sister, prepared her wedding-clothes, and

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in the parlour window? Apartments to let, -inquire within." These are certainly the curate's lodgings-is he going away? Oh I suppose the new vicar will do his own duty -yet, however well he may do it, rich and poor will regret the departure of Mr. B. Well, I hope he may soon get a good living. "Lodgings to let" who ever thought of seeing such a placard hereabout? The lodgings, indeed, are very convenient for "a single gentleman, a man and his wife, or two sisters," as the newspapers say-comfortable apartments, neat and tasty withal, and the civilest of all civil treatment from the host and hostess. But who would ever have dreamt of such a notice? Lodgings to let in our village!

PREFACE.*

THE indulgent reception given to her little book of Our Village, has encouraged the author to extend her work by putting forth a second volume on a similar plan; consisting, like the first, of slight and simple delineations of country manners, blended with a few sketches drawn from a somewhat higher rank of society.

A WALK THROUGH THE VILLAGE.

beering) at the Rose; Dame Wheeler, with her basket and her brown loaf, just coming from the bake-house; the nymph of the shoeshop feeding a large family of goslings at the open door-they are very late this year, those noisy little geese; two or three women in high gossip dawdling up the street; Charles North the gardener, with his blue apron and ladder on his shoulder, walking rapidly by; a cow and a donkey browsing the grass by the wayside; my white greyhound, Mayflower, sitting majestically in front of her own stable; and ducks, chickens, pigs, and children, scattered over all.

A pretty scene!-rather more lopping of trees, indeed, and clipping of hedges, along the high road, than one quite admires; but then that identical turnpike-road, my ancient despair, is now so perfect and so beautiful a specimen of MacAdamization, that one even learns to like tree-lopping and hedge-clipping for the sake of such smooth ways. It is simply the best road in England, so says our surveyor, and so say I. The three miles between the way, I ought, perhaps, to mention, as us and B are like a bowling-green. By something like change in our outward position, that this little hamlet of ours is much nearer to that illustrious and worshipful town than it used to be. Not that our quiet street hath been guilty of the unbecoming friskiness of skipping from place to place, but that our ancient neighbour, whose suburbs are sproutcularly strong shoot towards us, and threatens ing forth in all directions, hath made a partiThe good town has already pushed the turnsome day or other to pay us a visit bodily.

WHEN I had the honour about two years ago of presenting our little village to that multiform and most courteous personage the Pub-pike gate half a mile nearer to us, and is in a lic, I hinted I think that it had a trick of standing still, of remaining stationary, unchanged, and unimproved in this most changeable and improving world. This habit, whether good or evil, it has retained so pertinaciously, that except that it is two years older, I cannot point out a single alteration which has occurred in our street. I was on the point of paying the inhabitants some equivocal compliment-and really I almost may-for, setting aside the inevitable growth of the young members of our community, and a few more grey hairs and wrinkles amongst the elder, I see little change. We are the same people, the same generation, neither richer, nor wiser, nor better, nor worse. Some, to be sure, have migrated; and one or two have died; and some-But we had better step out into the village, and look about us.

fair way to overleap that boundary and build on, till the buildings join ours, as London has done by Hampstead or Kensington. What tions would cut ranged by the side of some a strange figure our rude and rustical habitastaring red row of newly-erected houses, each as like the other as two drops of water, with courts before and behind, a row of poplars opposite and a fine new name. How different nooks and angles, our gardens, and arbours, we should look in our countless variety of and lime-trees, and pond! but this union of town and country will hardly happen in my certainly lend no assistance, for our boundatime, let B enlarge as it may. We shall ries still continue exactly the same.

It is a pleasant lively scene, this May morning, with the sun shining so gaily on the irregular rustic dwellings, intermixed with their pretty gardens; a cart and wagon watering (it would be more correct, perhaps, to say

*To the second volume, as originally published.

The first cottage-Ah! there is the postcart coming up the road at its most respectable rumble, that cart, or rather caravan, which so show of the smaller kind at a country fair. much resembles a house upon wheels, or a It is now crammed full of passengers, the driver just protruding his head and hands out of the vehicle, and the sharp clever boy, who, in the occasional absence of his father, officiates as deputy, perched like a monkey on the roof. 66 Any letters to day?" And that

question, always so interesting, being unsatisfactorily answered, I am at leisure to return to our survey. The first cottage is that erst inhabited by Mr. and Mrs. H. the retired publican and his good wife. They are gone; I always thought we were too quiet for them; and his eyes being quite recovered, he felt the weariness of idleness more than ever. So they returned to W., where he has taken a comfortable lodging next door to their old and well-frequented Inn, the Pie and Parrot, where he has the pleasure every evening of reading the newspaper, and abusing the ministers amongst his old customers, himself a customer; as well as of lending his willing aid in waiting and entertaining on fair-days and market-days, at pink-feasts and melon-feasts, to the great solace of mine host, and the no small perplexity of the guests, who, puzzled between the old landlord and the new, hardly know to whom to pay their reckoning, or which to call to account for a bad tap: -a | mistake, which our sometime neighbour, happier than he has been since he left the Bar, particularly enjoys. His successor here is an industrious person, by calling a seedsman, as may be collected by the heaps of pea and bean seed, clover and vetches, piled tier above tier against the window.

is really a great girl. They are a fine family from the eldest to the youngest.

The shoemaker's!- not much to talk of there; no funeral! and (which disappoints my prediction) no wedding! My pretty neighbour has not yet made her choice. She does wisely to look about her. A belle and an heiress-I dare say she'll have a hundred pounds to her portion-and still in her teens, has some right to be nice. Besides, what would all the mammas, whose babies she nurses, and all the children whom she spoils, do without her? No sparing the shoemaker's fair daughter! She must not marry yet these half-dozen years!

The shop!-all prosperous, tranquil, and thriving; another little one coming; an idle apprentice run away,-more of him anon; and a civil journeyman hired in his room. An excellent exchange! Jesse is a very agreeable person. He is the politician of the village since we have lost Mr. H., and as he goes every day into B in his paper cap to carry our country bread, he is sure to bring home the latest intelligence of all sorts, especially of canvassing and electioneering. Jesse has the most complete collection of squibs in the country, and piques himself on his skill in detecting the writers. He will bestow as many guesses, and bring forward as many proofs on occasion of a hand-bill signed "FairPlay," or a song subscribed "True-blue," as ever were given to that abiding riddle, the authorship of Junius-and very likely come as near the mark.

Ah, the dear home! A runaway there too! I may as well tell the story now, although very sorry to have to record so sad an act of delinquency of my clients the boys, as an elopement from our own premises.

The little white cottage down the lane which stands so prettily, backed by a tall elm wood, has also lost its fair inmate, Sally Wheeler; who finding that Joel continued constant to our pretty Harriet, and was quite out of hope, was suddenly forsaken by the fit of dutifulness which brought her to keep her deaf grandmother company, and returned to service. Dame Wheeler has however a companion, in a widow of her own standing, appointed by the parish to live with, and take care of her. A nice tidy old woman is Dame Henry Hamilton-that ever a parish boy, Shearman;-pity that she looks so frumpish; offspring of a tailor and a cook-maid, should her face seems fixed in one perpetual scold. have an appellation so fitted to the hero of a It was not so when she lived with her sister romance! Henry Hamilton had lived with on the Lea then she was a light-hearted mer- us for three years and upwards as man of all ry chatterer, whose tongue ran all day long-work, part waterer of my geraniums, sole and that's the reason of her cross look now! Mrs. Wheeler is as deaf as a post, and poor Mrs. Shearman is pining of a suppression of speech. Fancy what it is for a woman, especially a talking woman, to live without a listener! forced either to hold her peace, or when that becomes impossible, to talk to one to whose sense words are as air! La Trappe is nothing to this tantalization; - besides the Trappists were men. No wonder that poor Dame Shearman looks cross.

The Blacksmith's! no change in that quarter; except a most astonishing growth amongst the children. George looks quite a man, and Betsy, who was just like a blue-eyed doll, with her flaxen curls and her apple-blossom complexion, the prettiest fairy that ever was seen, now walks up to school every morning with her work-bag and her spelling-book, and

feeder of May, the general favourite and factotum of the family. Being an orphan with no home but the workhouse, no friend but the overseer, at whose recommendation he was engaged, he seemed to belong to us in an especial manner, to have a more than common claim on protection and kindness. Henry was just the boy to discover and improve this feeling;-quick, clever, capable, subtle, and supple; exceedingly agreeable in manner, and pleasant in appearance. He had a light, pliant form, with graceful delicate limbs like a native Indian; a dark but elegant countenance sparkling with expression; and a remarkable variety and versatility of talent. Nothing came amiss to him. In one week he hath been carpenter, blacksmith, painter, tinker, glazier, tailor, cobbler, and wheelwright. These were but a few of his multifarious ac

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