What a paltry sum! and yet, since yesterday, what efforts had been made to obtain it. The girl had called on half-a-dozen neighbours: none could lend the money. The widow had for months been wellnigh bed-rid; and so her hovel had been stripped to meet the wants of her forlorn old age. The mill, too, had stopped work for some weeks: with all their sufferings, never had the widow and daughter been in such a strait.

"One shilling and a penny."-"Strange!" thinks the reader, "that there should be such a pother about so paltry a sum; that from a dozen neighbours, no such amount could be gathered as one shilling and a penny. It is incredible! impossible!"

Still the letter remained at the post office and how, how to obtain it!

The village barber, Zachary Slum, was cross-grained, humpbacked, avaricious, indeed, in the opinion of all who had the disadvantage of knowing him, there was no such ogre as Zachary Slum. He had long cast an affectionate—a longing eye on the charms of Molly he had long hovered about her house, like an evil spirit, but had never been so constant in his visits as during the sickness of Molly's mother.

"And can you find it in your heart still to refuse me?" asked Zachary, looking languishingly upon Molly; "depend upon it, you don't know what's for your own good."

"I wonder at your impudence, Mr. Slum," cried Molly, who might as well have talked to one of the walnut-tree cherubs adorning the village pulpit; for the barber, still unmoved, puffed out his cheeks, and smiled and gazed admiringly.

"And you won't be persuaded, Molly?" persisted Slum, “there's no melting you!"

"I'd rather die first!" exclaimed Molly, colouring at the pertinacity of the grinning barber.

"And is your mother so very bad," cried Zachary, adroitly shifting the subject. "Poor old soul!-depend upon it, all she wants is a little chicken-broth; but then chickens are so dear."

"She has what the doctor bids her," answered Molly, moodily,— "I'll take care of that."

"But it's a dreadful thing to strip your house of all its little comforts; and, if you'll take my offer,-" and the barber leered.

"I won't," cried Molly, vehemently; "and there's an answer." "A crown's a crown,' ," said Zachary Slum; and filliping the coin with his thumb and finger, it flew up, glittering in the angry eyes of Molly. "A crown's a crown," repeated Zachary.

"I would n't, then, if you'd give me five pounds," said Molly. "You'll think better of it," persisted the barber,—“ you'll not be such a fool to refuse such an offer," and Zachary turned from the door and limped away. Suddenly he stopped, and looking towards Molly, called her a proud, insolent hussey, and begged to ask her where she expected to go to. And then, the barber, believing that Molly would, at the last moment, relent, hobbled back to the door, flinging up the crown-piece and catching it, as he advanced. Just as he gained the threshold, and for the last time, was about to repeat his magnificent offer, Molly disappeared, and shut the door in Slum's face.

Zachary returned his crown-piece to his pocket with the air of a deeply-injured man; and at night, at "The Bundle of Hay," gave it as his unbiassed and most dispassionate opinion that, "Molly was the proudest, and most upstartest wench; and, if he knew what was what-and he had never been mistaken-would certainly come to no manner of good. "She had refused him, and that in the most impudent manner, what he had often had of her betters."

A fortnight only had elapsed since the repulse of Zachary Slum, when the Postman appeared with the letter.

"One shilling and a penny!"

For two days had Molly pondered on the means of possessing the precious, unexpected letter. Who could tell what wonderful news it might contain? Who could divine how much gladness might be had as payment of the postage--for "one shilling and a penny."

It was on the third morning, that the girl suddenly darted from the cottage. As she ran, her beautiful hair (for Molly's auburn locks were, indeed, most beautiful) streamed behind her; and still she ran, as one of the neighbours said, like mad.

And whither went she? Alack! To the shop of the barber, the tempting mercenary Zachary Slum.

In half-an-hour Molly returned to her mother. The old woman almost screamed when she beheld her. "Why, Molly, where hast been, and what hast done?" cried the old woman, snatching the bonnet from the girl's head.

Molly only answered, "here, Mother-here's the letter."

The reader has seen how Molly was tempted by Zachary Slum, who, many a time had offered money for her beautiful long hair,offered, only to be laughed at, chidden, refused. But now,enough; Molly could bear no longer suspense; at any cost she must have that precious writing.

Molly, shorn of her locks, brought home the letter: the bribe of the barber had paid the Postman.

THE ENGLISH PEASANT.

BY WILLIAM HOWITT.

THE ENGLISH PEASANT is generally reckoned a very simple, monotonous animal, and most people when they have called him a clown, or a country hob, think they have described him. If you see a picture of him, he is a long silly-looking-fellow, in a straw hat, a white slop, and a pair of ankle-boots, with a bill in his hand-just as the London artist sees him in the juxta-metropolitan districts—and that is the English Peasant. They who have gone further into England, however, than Surrey, Kent, or Middlesex, have seen the English Peasant in some different costume, under a good many different aspects; and they who will take the trouble to recollect what they have heard of him, will find him a rather multifarious He is in truth a very Protean personage. What is he in fact? A day-labourer, a woodman, a ploughman, a wagoner, a collier, a worker in railroad and canal-making, a game-keeper, a poacher, an incendiary, a charcoal-burner, a keeper of village ale houses, and Tom-and-Jerry's; a tramp; a pauper, pacing sullenly the court-yard of a Parish Union, or working in his frieze-jacket on some parish farm; a boatman, a road-side stone-breaker, a quarry man, a journeyman bricklayer, or his clerk, a shepherd, a drover, a rat-catcher, a mole-catcher, and half a hundred other things, in any one of which he is as different from the sheepish, straw-hatted, anklebooted, and bill-holding fellow of the print-shop windows, as a Cockney is from a Newcastle keelman.

creature.

In the matter of costume only, every different district presents him in a different shape. In the counties round London, east and westward, through Berkshire, Hampshire, Wiltshire &c., he is the white slopped man of the London prints, with a longish rosy-cheeked face, and a stupid quiet manner. In Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, and in that direction, he sports his olive-green slop, and his wideawake, larking-hat, bit-o'-blood, or whatever else the hatters call those round-crowned, turned-up-brimmed felts of eighteen-pence or two shillings cost, which have of late years so wonderfully taken the

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