"Well, ma'am, I think he said as he was just reference to her leaving her last place, the reaso turned sixteen."

why. To which the girl with, as I thought, mi “ As much as that? Was be a big boy or a little candor gave an answer wellnigh fatal to her boy? because, you know, some boys at sixteen are ent prospect of engagement. almost men, and quite as objectionable.”

“Well, ma'am, missus always said she was qui At this the girl could not suppress a smile, nor satisfied with the way I did my work, and I shoc could I: not in the least disconcerted, however, she n't have had to leave only she thought as I had a replied,

acquaintance." 26 Why, he was n't very big nor yet very little, “A what?” but I never knowed as there was ever anything “ An acquaintance, ma'am.” against the boy."

“ An acquaintance !” exclaimed the maiden lady Despairing, I conclude, of eliciting further infor- her hitherto inflexible features being for the first mation touching this interesting youth of sixteen, time summoned to participate in the borrifai the lady who, I noticed, had been scrutinizing the amazement with which the disclosure was receive young woman's attire from head to foot, next went "an acquaintance ! O, I do not wonder the into the matter of dress, on which subject she ap- you should have had notice. I would never keep 1 peared to hold decided views.

servant in my house who was capable of such an in * In case of your entering my service, I must tell propriety. A place soon loses its name for respect you I should require you to dress very simply." ability if acquaintances are tolerated."

“ O yes, ma'am, certainly. I've always been “But, if you please, ma'am, replied the young 'customed to dress plain.”

woman, “it was n't true, only missus suspected “ Yes, but," resumed the lady, "I cannot say I so." consider your dress to-day at all suited to a ser- “Ah! but I should be afraid she had some ground vant."

for her suspicion. Servants are so foolish. The As I glanced at the girl's clothing, I confess I require so much watching to keep them proper 20: could discover nothing with which even a fastidious respectable that it causes ladies a great deal of mistress could find fault. The bonnet certainly trouble and anxiety. It shall never be said that was trimmed with broad green ribbon and the gown, fail to look after mine. Even on the Sunday, when a clean print, appeared to owe its expansion to one they must of course go to church, I keep them withof those contrivances held evidently in virtuous hor- in my own observation. I always make them will ror by her punctilious criticiser.

close behind me and sit near my pew where I can “You may depend upon it,” she continued, “it is see them, so that no one can even speak to them very much more becoming that the dress of a fe- without my being aware of it ; besides that, I conmale should sit close to her person than that it sider it my duty to see all the letters that my her should be spread out away from it in that manner." | vants receive, so as to prevent anything like an m

I wondered at the moment in what sense the word proper correspondence." “becoming ” was to be taken, whether the estimable On the disclosure of so complete a system of lady was under the impression that a skirt which espionage the idea seemed to occur to the young sat as hers did tended most to show the figure to woman that the situation might not be quite so deadvantage. Some further allusion, however, which sirable as she had supposed, and for the first time she made relative to the proverbial unsuitableness there were symptoms of non-acquiescence in the of crinoline for going up stairs soon convinced me lady's mode of dealing with her domestics; so she that her objection to the article arose solely from replied, still quite respectfully, — her notions of propriety.

1 * Please, ma'am, I've always been used to have After some further observations on the part of the an hour or two to myself of a Sunday afternoon, lady, in which she pointed out the impossibility of and I ain't never been 'customed to show anybody the girl's doing her work properly while encumbered the letters as I gets." with the appendage in question, the latter yielded “Well, I could not alter my rules for any ser so far as to consent to lay it aside and appear sleek vant. I only act in accordance with what I colland slim during working hours. This point gained, ceive to be my duty. If you think my ways to the lady next inquired,

strict, you had better not think of my place." " Have you been in the habit of wearing a There was a few moments' pause, during Whu

the girl looked down, as if to collect from of the * Yes, ma'am, I've always been used to wear a floor her thoughts or words wherein to express them, cap."

the result being, as I quite anticipated, her final ap"I wonder whether it is what I should call a cap. swer. Some servants of mine have told me before I en- “I'm ʼmost afeard, ma'am, I should n't give you gaged them that they wore caps, but on coming to satisfaction." me they have had nothing on their heads but a tiny 1 An exchange of “good mornings” now ternil. bit of net which you could not even see unless you nated this interesting though abortive interview stood behind them. Before engaging you, I think I and Mrs. Primworthy and the lady being left in sout should like to see one of your caps."

occupation of the office, the latter recommenced. “ Very well, ma'am.”

* I scarcely thought that person would answer for “You tell me you have been accustomed to open me when she came into your office. She is evidentthe door. I hope your manner to visitors is respectly fond of dress, and altogether there was a style ful and modest, especially when a gentleman calls. about her that I do not like in a servant." I have not many gentlemen visitors, but you know, “Well, ma'am," replied Mrs. Primworthy, " 29 to a gentleman you cannot be too guarded and re- regards the matter of dress, why you see, ma'am, served in your manner. Never say a word more servants is apt to get a bit dressy now-a-days, and than you can help, and never be seen to smile or to tell you the truth, ma'am, I should n't really have look pleased as some servants do."

considered that girl at all gayly dressed as the times The next inquiry on the part of the lady had go. Things is a good deal changed now in compare

on as they used to be, and the fact is, you can't | ty, well got-up in a suit of light-colored garments, et servants to dress themselves the same as they and an Albert chain dangling gracefully from a id twenty or thirty years ago with large caps tied | buttonhole, had come to transact business with the nder the chin, and bonnets with scarcely any rib- accommodating Mrs.. Primworthy. He has come in on, and short skimpy skirts, and such like. The quest of a valet de chambre, was my conclusion ; or, imes is altered, and we sha'n't have servants the may be, he is a married man, and is deputed by ame as they used to be never again no more. Be- his wife to negotiate for some female servant or ides, ma'am, mistresses is so different. I know other. It was then with unfeigned surprise that I ome that takes a sort of pride in the appearance of heard Mrs. Primworthy address him familiarly as heir servants, and would n't have them dressed in “ Thomas," inquiring interestedly, at the same time, he old-fashioned style on no account whatever." after his parents and family. Greater still was my

" How strange that does seem! Perhaps you had amazement when, on proceeding to business, I heard better try and find me a more elderly person. the question asked him, “What made you leave Have you any one on your list at present who you your last situation ?" Yes indeed, however hard to think would suit me?”

credit it, this was a footman out of place! He had “No, ma'am, not at present, I'm sorry to say, no come to see if Mrs. Primworthy could find him one at all; and I'm really afraid I shall have some another berth. difficulty in meeting with the kind of person you “Why did I leave my last situation ?” he anrequire.”

swered, echoing Mrs. Primworthy's question," I left “ So I should fancy,” soliloquized I, as on the de- it because my feelings would not allow me to remain parture of this model mistress I indulged in specu any longer; and when you hear all particulars, lations as to whence the good lady had derived her you 'll only wonder how I put up with it so long." notions of “i domestic "treatment; whether she had "Indeed, Thomas. I'm sorry to hear that. Let herself in earlier years been subjected to anything me see, - you was only there four months, — was correspondent in the way of supervision and re- not that all ? " straint, and whether, if so, how it had answered in “Six months, Mrs. Primworthy, such a six months her own case. Whether, for example, pains had as I hope never to pass in any other situation, and been taken to impress upon her youthful mind the I'll take care I don't if I can help it. Why, they impropriety of possessing an “acquaintance," and don't know how to treat a respectable man; and all such objectionable superfluities had been judi- then, the things I was expected to do there, it brings ciously kept aloof. Who knows but what her pres- up all my indignation to think of them. First of ent freedom from marital encumbrance may be due all, I was n't even given a room to myself, but was to the successful adoption of this system? She forced to share a bedroom with the groom, a common may perhaps owe her state of blissful celibacy to fellow who used to snore so loud I had to lie awake the praiseworthy intervention of parents or others for hours listening to him. To think of this, after who checked every tendency to cultivate an ac- what I had been accustomed to! and then, this low quaintance, and, thanks to their efforts, life remains chap, he knew so little of his place, and all that was to her one continued game of solitaire. But be it due to me, that he refused to clean my boots the even so, I began to have my doubts whether the very first morning after I came, saying I was just as plan on which this respected lady acted was the much a servant as he was ; so that I had actually to right one. I could not bring myself to see the pro- do my own boot-cleaning during the whole of those priety of treating servants like young school-girls, blessed six months." to say nothing of the practicable impossibility of “ Well but, Thomas, I don't think such little andoing so. It is, no doubt, a great nuisance to know noyances as those, sufficient cause for leaving a good that one or more young men are hovering over an situation.” equal number of your female attendants, and a still “You would n't call it a good situation if you greater one when, on the ripening of the acquaint- knew all the rest I had to put up with. A good situaance into something more, a good servant like tion indeed! That is just what I was told it was Betsy takes herself off“ for better for worse," leav- before I went there. I expected they were good ing you as good as cookless or nurseless or house- stylish sort of people, who knew what a man in my maidless; and it is not to be wondered at if, after position would, and what he would not stand. Such such painful experience, the mistress of a house unfashionable hours, too, as they kept I never heard should insert a clause in her resolutions prohibiting of before! If they did n't breakfast at eight o'clock, henceforth all followers ; but this does not answer, and then expect me to be all dressed and ready to nor ever will while the law of nature continues attend table at such a time of day as that. " Of against it; and so singular am I, that I now prefer course I told them at once I could n't do it; they engaging a servant who has a respectable well-de- must get the parlor maid to wait at breakfast, and fined Joseph on the horizon with whom she is per answer the bells, too, and not expect me anywhere mitted to * keep company” at intervals, rather than up stairs till after twelve o'clock.” a young woman who I know, will be on the watch " That was making rather bold, I think, Thomas. to take in tow the first Dick, Tom, or Harry, - You 'll find very few places indeed where you 'll be perhaps all three, whom she may succeed in signal- left to yourself till twelve in the day." izing.

“Well, Mrs. Primworthy, that is my resolution, But the time was passing, and my young woman and I intend keeping to it. They required nothing had not come. Weary of waiting, I rose to depart, more at my former situation, because they knew when Mrs. Primworthy, knowing I had come some better what a man like me was entitled to. But distance, prevailed upon me to wait a little lon- there was lots of other things they wanted me to ger.” I was about to speak to her about the person submit to. When I engaged for the place, it was whom the maiden lady had sent adrift, and who, I understood that I should have a suit of clothes at thought, might have suited me, when she was again the end of every six months, making two suits in the summoned back to her office. A young man with year; but after I had been there about two months, light hair and fair complexion about five-and-twen- | the gentleman sends for me and says he, « Thomas,

there are two suits of clothes of mine on the drawers | " What do you want to go out for, Thomas in my dressing-room which you can have; they are “ Where do you want to go to, Thomas ?"ornot at all worn out; take and get them altered to long shall you be gone, Thomas ? " making me fit you as they are well worth it.” I felt my pride more like as if I was a ticket-of-leave man sie. hurt at this, and no wonder, so says I to him, “ No, man bearing the respectable character that I sir, I'm much obliged to you, I don't wear other And would you believe, though I offered to people's cast-off clothing, but I don't mind carrying lock on the back door and stand the expensel them down stairs and giving them to Bill the groom. self, so as I might come in any hour of the ne I dare say they will be useful to him, and perhaps without disturbing the family, the gentlens he won't mind wearing them as they are without would n't allow it, saying he wondered only bore even altering!” And what do you think Mr. — I could ask such a thing. That does n't much says to me because I mentioned this about Bill and like indulgence, I should say, sbould you?" the old clothes? Why, he calls me an insolent fel | “As to the matter of going out at night low, and tells me to be off down stairs. So, when Thomas," replied Mrs. Primworthy, “I know : my time was up, at the end of the six months, I re- many places where that is not allowed for a hal ceived my wages right enough, and quite naturally and yet the master and mistress, I should say, e) I looked for the suit of clothes according to agree- as indulgent as need be. But now, what do ment; thinking how nice it would be for me to have wish me to do for you ? because, you see, bare some good new things to come away with, when some one else come to do business with me an Mr. - turns and begins abusing me like any- | dare say her time is precious, the same as mines thing, saying he had done more than ever he was “ Why, what I want is a regular first-class site bound to do in offering me those old things of his, tion; and I think a butler's place the one to swiss so I should n't get anything more out of him, and it best, because people always treat a butler with gre was no use for me trying to. If that was n't be- er respect and consideration than they do a footie having shabby!”

It seems to me a butler holds a situation sorse “I think, Thomas," interposed Mrs. Primworthy, balf way in a family between the parlor and " you was wrong in refusing the clothes. Perhaps kitchen. He is not exactly master nor he isn't lov if it was not specified that the clothes should be new ed upon quite like a servant; and then, too, ones, Mr. — considered he was acting up to the having charge of the wine, and the silver and said terms he engaged you on in offering you what he like things, of itself makes his place of importance did. I know Mr. — has always been represented and to tell you the truth, Mrs. Primworthy, it I DE to me as a thorough gentleman, and the last young every one that is qualified for it, but after the exp man as was there said it was a nice comfortable rience I have had — ” place and he was sorry to leave. To tell you the Thomas was not permitted to finish the proclam. truth, Thomas, I'm afraid you was a little bit spoiled, tion of his competency for the office newly aspunt as the saying is, at the place where you was be to, Mrs. Primworthy making so manifest a transfer fore.”

of her attention to the new arrival that he made i "Well, you do astonish me to think how any bow, signifying at the same time his intention man of proper feelings could call that a comfortable calling again in a day or two. What was electes place; but it showed the sort of men they had be- at the threatened interview I did not learn, bur! fore me when they had actually been in the habit remember thinking at the time, had I been .. of carrying the coals up stairs. They tried this on Primworthy, I should be somewhat cautious avo with me when first I came, expecting I was going helping this airified gentleman into a first comes to carry two or three great scuttlefuls of coals a day family, even in the new form of butler. Curioei all the way from the coal-cellar up to the drawing-| tempted me to ask the woman something, and room. But, as I told them, my hands are not made him, when she told me she had known him for that sort of work, and what's more, I understood years; that he had been taken by the hand out of a my place much too well to submit to it if they had hovel by some one or other who had given in been. I never made any objection to lift the coals decent education and provided him with two of on to the fire when the coal-box stood ready beside three successive situations. Till lately, none knes the chimney-piece, so as to save the ladies the trou- his place better than did Thomas, but he ble; and as I was anxious to be accommodating, I recently held a situation at a Lady — told them if they would get a sort of coal-cupboard had, in fact, as Mrs. Primworthy expressed it, built on the landing outside the drawing-room door, pletely spoiled him. This lady, under the by as Lady - did, to hold two or three days' coal, I | means rare delusion that she had got a treasure shoald n't even make a difficulty about filling the was persuaded that she could not do enough coal-box from there; but as to carrying the coal-box Thomas nor require too little from him, couple up stairs, I should n't do it.”

with a superstitious dread of the awfulness of *** And did they actually let you off carrying the calamity, should Thomas ever leave her. Un coals ? " inquired the astonished Mrs. Primworthy, the combined influence of these joint impressions, becoming, like myself, more and more amazed at was no wonder if Thomas's indulgences increases

Thomas's presumption. “If they did, I think you both in number and in magnitude. What he were treated with great indulgence there alto- he did, and what he liked not he left alone or gether.”

by deputy, till it had grown hard to define exact “ Indulgence!" exclaimed the man, " don't speak the nature of the position which he held in of indulgence in that house. I might as well have Lady — 's establishment; and there, no doubt gone for six months to jail at once for all the in- was he had conceived the happy notion of a new dulgence that was allowed us there. Of course, a office between up stairs rule and down stairs man like me when he has done his work, likes to vitude for which he deemed himself so admirad spend his evenings now and then with his friends or suited. But in an evil day for him, Lady-to at his club. But never could I get out of a night ill and died, died most unexpectedly. Poor Thou without first asking leave, and then it was always, as, of course, participated in the general dispel

on of her retinue that ensued, winding up in the she firmly believes in the legend, and that whether rvice of this Mr. - , six months' experience of there was a marriage or not, there was “ something hich had quite satisfied him.

in the story.” The longevity of the myth is not It was now my turn, the last comer already al- | perhaps unnatural. The idea of King Cophetua uded to being the individual whom I was expect and the beggar maid, that is, of the equality prong and whose appearance was verily a relief to duced by love, is a favorite one with all mankind, ne; for although I confess to have been somewhat and the English people have been educated by their ntertained by much I had been fain to listen to, I, novelists .to believe in secret marriages, changed n truth, desired to hear no more. My own busi- children, suppressed documents, and all manner of ness was of a very ordinary nature and speedily semi-legal, semi-prurient rubbish. Ignorance is a Poncluded. Had anything passed worth jotting much more diffused quality, too, than is usually

iown, it should have been recorded for the benefit allowed, or educated persons would not imagine, as of the reader ; but I refrain from inflicting the re- it is quite clear from the “ Princess Olive” trials cital of my commonplace transaction upon others they do imagine, that a succession confirmed by a who, like myself, have probably had enough of the thousand Acts of Parliament could be upset by the subject.

discovery that George III. was as a minor, a libertine, My admission behind the scenes, if I may so term or a scoundrel The determined efforts, too, of a it, went, I think, to strengthen the notions I had single family, or rather of a single person, Mrs. already held as to the correct mode of dealing with Serres, to prove some connection between herself domestic servants. I had always been under the and the royal family have helped to keep the scanimpression that there were two errors to guard dal alive, till at last worshipping loyalists who will against if you desire to be satisfactorily served. tell you that George III. was the best of men, will One is, the mistake of being over strict, and the also tell you that the arrogant German who believed other that of being too indulgent. To steer evenly in his own divine right and the sacredness of royal a midway course between these two very common blood, who was at once exclusive, patriotic, and tendencies, while it forms one of the secrets of suc-chaste, risked the succession in order to gratify a cessful managment, is an art of which few are mas- momentary passion, by what he would have considter. And a third notion of mine is this, – that for ered the ineffable degradation of a marriage with a the kitchen, the happiest and most successful form | low-born woman. of government is the republican. If cook be presi- Mr. Thoms, the able editor of that successful litdent, let her be nothing more. A monarchy be- tle farrago of learning, oddities, absurdities, and low stairs never answers. If cook is permitted shrewdnesses, Notes and Queries, perhaps the one to wield the reins, she will very soon assume the weekly newspaper which will be consulted three whip, and the community will be subject to period- hurdred years hence, has been trying very hard to ical disruption. Being already prepossessed with get at the truth of the Hannah Lightfoot story. It the correctness of my theory, I came away with ex- is nearly impossible to prove a negative, and quite isting impressions deepened by what I was con- impossible to prove a negative about the secret hisstrained to hear during my half-hour's detention in tory of Courts, but Mr. Thoms has certainly sucthe Servants' Registry.

ceeded in raising a violent presumption that the story is a delusion, possibly based on some intrigue

carried on by one of the Royal Family, but more HANNAH LIGHTFOOT.

probably an invention intended to back up the OF the endless series of scandals about the reign Princess Olive case. It is excessively improbable, ing house of Great Britain, circulated by historians, in the first place, that any such person as Hannah memoir-writers, gossips, and liars, only one has had Lightfoot ever existed. It is quite certain, at all a long and, so to speak, an interesting life, and that events, that if she existed, she was not a Quaker. is the story of Hannah Lightfoot, the “Fair If she had been, the Quakers would have known all Quaker.” The mass of people who do not read about her family, her birth, parentage, and educahistory have forgotten George II.'s full-fleshed mis- tion, the time when she was "ruled out," and so tresses, and the preposterous accusations which for on; and they, we are told, absolutely reject the years were levelled at almost all the children of story of her existence. Of course, a girl not a QuaGeorge III. Only Brighton remembers clearly or ker might have had that nickname, but all the little cares to recall the brutalities of George IV., and evidence relied on points to the special persuasion five sixths of the younger generation, if they heard as the great feature in the case, the reason, in fact, Mrs. Jordan's name, would ask who she was. One why George III. was compelled to go through the scandal, however, lives. It is forty-seven years marriage ceremony. Then it is remarkable, to say since George III. died, and there are still thousands the least of it, that during the sixty succeeding years of families, if the truth were known, perhaps tens of of the king's reign, during which he was watched, thousands of families, who believe firmly that the satirized, reviled, and hated as no English king Farmer King married in his boyhood a girl named ever was, no whisper of the affair, no rumor, or Hannah Lightfoot, a Quaker, the daughter of a joke, or song about it was ever heard of. Court tradesman, that she lived in retirement many years, secrets are sometimes well kept, but Court scandals that as no Royal Marriage Act existed the marriage usually creep out, and every incident which could with Queen Charlotte was null, and that the entire by possibility be made to tell against George III. royal family is illegitimate. A still larger number, was sedulously hunted up. The mass of hostile methough rejecting this version as a little too absurd moirs, songs, stories, apologies, and what not about for credence, believe that Hannah Lightfoot was a him would fill a library, but nobody mentions Hanreal person, that she was George III's only irregu-nah. Indeed, there is reason to believe that the lar love, and that the children are still scattered regularity of life, his entire abstinence from the about the world, high in the public service. Ask connections to which the country had been accusalmost any lady, indeed, in England, old enough to tomed by his predecessors, and with which they remember the Regency, and she will tell you that were familiarized by his sons, annoyed a very considerable class who would have been delighted to story, for aught anybody can tell, may be sto believe, or affect to believe, in an early intrigue. correct, but even then it is not evidence. It is They neither believed nor affected belief, and the of inconsistencies, which Mr. Thoms exposes; fact that they did not, though only a negative assume it to be true. Queen Caroline was as 1 proof, speaks to us volumes. Then we have his scrupulous in her talk as in her life, was a ralisa own positive statement to the contrary. The King, bad woman in all ways, was extremely ignoran: of course, knew nothing of any story about a Qua- she thought, according to this very pamphlet, i ker, even if it were in circulation, which we entire- the marriage with Mrs. Fitzherbert vitiated beroa ly disbelieve, but on August 28th, 1781, His Majes-- and had lived years with a drunken romanse ty wrote to Lord North lamenting the Prince of who used to state, with the Duke of Wellingtoe 1 Wales's connection with Mrs. Robinson, the ac- table, that he himself had been present at Waterke tress, and stating that he had authorized Lieutenant- and who was quite capable, if taunted with V. Colonel Hotham to buy his son's letters to her for Fitzherbert, of declaring himself no worse than in $ 5,000. He writes in genuine sorrow and annoy father. “Cramming" a stupid woman of that ance, and ends his letter with the following perfect with an emotional story affecting all manner of per ly unnecessary statement: “I am happy at being ple, discreditable to his father and fatal to her on able to say that I never was personally engaged in status, would have been an amusement just suiteda, such a transaction, which, perhaps, makes me feel the intellect of George IV., who, moreover, mano this the stronger.” Few people even now would factured stories very well. It is quite possible the make such an assertion unless it were true; in 1781 the real origin of the whole story was some of Quees it would, if publicly made, have brought on the Caroline's gossip, based on some mystification of be King more ridicule than applause, - read the songs husband's, but taken by her low-minded Court in about Pitt, - and it was made to Lord North, who gospel. Other evidence, that is, testimony by pe would not have cared one straw if his master had sons of credibility, there is none, for we utterly de been engaged in intrigues all his life. It was pal- cline to consider silly libels like the “ Authentic Ret pably a statement made by the King to explain to ords" published seventy years after the facts su Lord North why he felt so keenly about an affair posed to have occurred, by a person who gave which, as he instinctively apprehended, would strike evidence whatever of his or her means of forming the Premier as a very ordinary and unimportant an opinion. Probably, as Mr. Thoms believes, the intrigue ; and we agree with Mr. Thoms, that it author was Mrs. Olivia Serres, but whoever the ought to dispose at once of the whole Lightfoot ro- | writer was, he or she was testifying to facts of what mance. No man with that on his conscience, or he could know nothing except by hearsay of th: even in his recollection, would have volunteered to vaguest kind, even though hearsay about the saying a man of the world so perfectly gratuitous an as- of a wandering Queen. Circulated just when the severation.

| public mind was most bitterly excited against the But, say the doubters, unwilling to give up their Royal Family, the scandal spread and was believed. legend, the King might not consider his relation to until it became an article of faith in English house Hannah Lightfoot an intrigue. It was a marriage. holds, not to be eradicated even by the persevering That view certainly does not tend to improve the criticism and research of Mr. Thoms and his comitKing's moral character, for if it were a marriage the spondents, but it was originally, we are convinced, subsequent one was an act of bigamy, just the kind a simple lie. of crime which the King's whole character forbade, which is most at variance with all that is known, and everything is known, of his inner mind. The asser

STONE EDGE. tion, be it remembered, is that the King, then under his mother's strict guardianship, a guardianship

CHAPTER VIII. — CROOMED Wars. known to have been watchful to espionage, and ed “The cranberries are ripe," said German one day ucated to believe himself almost a sacred person, to his sister. married before 1754,- marriages in Keith Chapel “Be they?” said she. “Then I 'll out and pick ceased then, - at sixteen, the daughter of a petty some, and send ’umn to my aunt by Nanny Elmes. tradesman ; hid her up near London, had several Nothing can be more charming in the rare fine dare children by her, and then during her lifetime mar- of that rainy region than the upland moors in their ried again in his own class. Surely some evidence, unspoiled beauty. In July and August they are a is required for a romance intrinsically so improbable, I gorgeous carpet of flowers, — the dwarf yellow furze, and there is absolutely none. The “ certificates” | mixed with three kinds of heather in their various and the "will" of "Ilannah Regina,” so often talked | purple gradations, making a perfect sea of bloom. of, have been proved in court, to the entire satisfac- Growing among these are rare vacciniums, with tion of every lawyer capable of weighing evidence, their lovely pink and white waxen bells, cranberto be clumsy forgeries, and indeed the alleged facts ries, whortleberries, blueberries, bilberries; whi carry their own condemnation. The King might have the red-leaved sundew, cotton-plant, and yellow strong motives enough for concealing his marriage, asphodel, mixed with wonderful green mosses, cover

- pride of caste, for example, – but what conceiv- the wetter spots. It is a rich garden for those who able motive could “Hannah Regina” have had for care, and for those who do not there is a fresh, soll, leaving her children under the stigma of illegitimacy. balmy lightness in the air, as if it were too delicious Beyond these “ documents" there is absolutely no for Nature to give it in common use to her children, proof whatever, except an assertion by the anony- and she therefore kept it only for rare occasions an mous author of a pamphlet published in 1824, that places difficult of access. Cassie was out on the Queen Caroline, while on her trial as an adulteress, cranberry moor very early in the next morning, and believed Queen Charlotte to have been remarried as she came and went among the flowers, not wito at Kew, after the births of George IV. and the Duke any sentimental purposes towards them, but simply of York. The pamphleteer, it seems clear, knew | picking her " berries," she threw off her bonnet, and Queen Caroline or her Court quite well, and his the delicate, bright, breezy-scented air made ber