market or vestry without finding out immediately that he is the richest man there. They have no child to inherit all this money; but there is a nephew, a fine-spirited lad, who may, perhaps, some day or other, play the part of a fountain to the reservoir.

Now turn up the wide road till we come to the open

common, with its park-like trees, its beautiful stream, wandering and twisting about, and its rural bridge. Here we turn again, past that other white farm-house, half hidden by the magnificent elms which stand before it. Ah! riches dwell not there; but there is found the next best thing-an industrious and light-hearted

poverty. Twenty years ago Rachel Hilton was the prettiest and merriest lass in the country. She had lovers by the score; but Joseph White, the darling and lively son of an opulent farmer, carried off the fair Rachel. They married and settled here, and here they still live, as merrily as ever, with fourteen children of all ages and sizes, from nineteen years to nineteen months, working harder than any people in the parish, and enjoying themselves more. I would match them for labour and laughter against any family in England. She is a blithe, jolly dame, whose beauty has amplified into comeliness; he is tall, and thin, and bony, with sinews like whipcord, a strong lively voice, a sharp weatherbeaten face, and eyes and lips that smile and brighten when he speaks into a most contagious 'hilarity. They are very poor, and I often wish them richer; but I don't know-perhaps it might put them out.

Ah! May is bounding forward! her silly heart leaps at the sight of the old place, and so, in good truth, does mine. What a pretty place it was! or rather, how pretty I thought it! I suppose I should have thought any place so, where I had spent eighteen happy years. But it was really pretty. A large, heavy, white house, in the simplest style, surrounded by fine oaks and elms and tall massy plantations, shaded down into a beautiful lawn by wild overgrown shrubs, bowery acacias, ragged sweetbriers, promontories of dog-wood, and Portugal laurel, and bays, overhung by laburnum and bird-cherry; a long piece of water letting light into the picture, and looking just like a natural stream, the banks as rude and wild as the shrubbery, interspersed with broom and furze and pollard oaks covered with ivy and honeysuckle; the whole enclosed by an old mossy park paling, and terminating in a series of rich meadows, richly planted.

This is an exact description of the home which, three years ago, it nearly broke my heart to leave. What a tearing up by the root it was! I have pitied cabbage plants and celery, and all transplantable things, ever since; though in common with them, and with other vegetables, the first agony of the transplantation being over, I have taken such a firm and 'tenacious hold of my new soil, that I would not for the world be pulled up again, even to be restored to the old beloved ground; not even if its beauty were undiminished, which is by no means the case; for in those three years it has thrice changed masters, and every successive possessor has brought the curse of improvement upon the place; so that between filling up the water to cure dampness, cutting down trees to let in prospects, planting to keep them out, shutting up windows to darken the inside of the house, and building colonnades to lighten the outside, added to a general clearance of pollards, and brambles, and ivy, and honeysuckles, and park palings, and irregular shrubs, the poor place is so 1otransmogrified, that if it had its old looking-glass, the water, back again, it would not know its own face. And yet I love to haunt round about it; so does May. Her particular attraction is a certain broken bank full of rabbit burrows, into which she insinuates her long pliant head and neck, and tears her pretty feet by vain scratchings: mine is a warm sunny hedgerow in the same remote field, famous for early flowers. Never was a spot more variously flowery : primroses yellow, lilacs white, violets of either hue, cowslips, oxlips, "arums, 12 orchises, wild hyacinths, ground ivy, pansies, strawberries, heart's-ease, formed a small part of the 13 flora of that wild hedgerow. How profusely they covered the sunny open slope under the weeping birch, "the lady of the woods!" and how often have I started to see the early innocent brown snake, who loved

the spot as well as I did, winding along the young blossoms, or nestling among the fallen leaves! There are primrose leaves already, and short green buds, but no flowers; not even in that furze cradle, so full of roots, where they used to blow as in a basket. No, my May, no rabbits! no primroses! We may as well get over the gate into the woody winding lane, which will bring us home again.

Here we are making the best of our way between the old elms that arch so solemnly overhead, dark and sheltered even now. They say that a spirit haunts the deep pool-a white lady without a head. I cannot say that I have seen her, often as I have paced this lane at deep midnight, to hear the nightingales and look at the glow-worm; but there, better and rarer than a thousand ghosts, dearer even than nightingales or glow-worms, there is a primrose, the first of the year: a tuft of primroses,

springing in yonder sheltered nook, from the mossy roots of an old willow, and living again in the clear bright pool. Oh, how beautiful they are! three fully grown and two bursting buds. How glad I am I came this way! They are not to be reached. May herself could not stand on that steep bank. So much the better. Who would wish to disturb them? There they live in their innocent and fragrant beauty, sheltered from the storms, and rejoicing in the sunshine, and looking as if they could feel their happiness. Who would disturb them? Oh, how glad I am I came this way home!

11 MARY RUSSELL MITFORD.

1Mayflower, the name of a dog. 2co-operating with, acting or working with, so as to assist. 3poult, a young chicken. opulent, rich, wealthy. 5amplified, enlarged, become full and complete. contagious, catching. hilarity, cheerfulness, mirth. pollard, a tree whose tops are cut off at certain seasons, in order that it may throw out side branches. tenacious, grasping firmly.; tough. 10 transmogrified, altered, completely changed. This is a rather vulgar word, and should not be used. "arum, a kind of plant which is sometimes found growing wild, and is then called the wake-robin. 12 orchis, a very extensive family of plants with large fleshy roots called tubers. They bear gay blossoms, and give forth an agreeable perfume. 13 flora, the goddess of flowers. The word is here used for the flowers themselves, taken as a whole. Mary Russell Mitford, see Appendix.

14

CHRISTIAN IN THE HANDS OF GIANT

DESPAIR.

Now there was, not far from the place where they lay, a castle, called Doubting Castle, the owner whereof was Giant Despair, and it was in his ground they were now sleeping; wherefore he, getting up in the morning early, and walking up and down in his fields, caught Christian and Hopeful asleep in his grounds. Then, with a grim