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"And recollect about your finger in the sugar," chimed in the cheerful little round woman.

France? And England, as a manufacturing country, cannot now afford to be behind the world in this respect. In the more rural districts, where more light is certainly needed, good libraries of agricultural works, such as the farmers of Scotland have provided for themselves in most districts, might be established with immense advantage. The most recent works on emigration would also be found highly valuable, as giving the best informa- | pinching every stray cat's tail, pulling the bright rubbed tion on a subject at present of so much interest to the industrious classes of all ranks. Sound, healthy books on all subjects might have a place in such depositories, displacing those frivolous and unprincipled books which have now by far too extensive a circulation, but which cease to be read so soon as literature of a higher class is placed within reach of the people. Men might thus be taught many lessons which concern their material, as well as their moral and religious welfare. The cleanliness and ventilation of their dwellings, habits of providence, of temperance, a taste for something better than mere animal enjoyment, might be gradually instilled into the mass through the instrumentality of well-chosen books.

We need scarcely say of how great advantage Public Libraries would be to men of letters, to the writers of books, to the editors of newspapers. At present, writers have to exhaust their means in buying books before they can sit down to compose any great work. We find Gibbon complaining, that, in his time, the greatest city in the world was destitute of that useful institution, a Public Library; and that "the writer who had undertaken to treat any large historical subject, was reduced to the necessity of purchasing for his private use a numerous and valuable collection of the books which must form the basis of his work." Even within the last half century, Graham, the historian of North America, removed from London to Göttingen, for the sole purpose of availing himself of a well-stored and freely accessible Public Library.

"Yes, Sir, yes, mum," answered Tim, in one breath, as he latched the door. But no sooner had he passed into the village street, than, the old tailor's injunctions quite forgotten, he commenced his ordinary recreation, by peeping over every blind and half-shuttered window, handle of the doctor's gate bell, and by howling dismally through the spacious front door key-holes of such unmusical parishioners as waged war against his master in the matter of parochial psalmody. At length, after this full measure of disobedience against the solfa-ing injunction, he passed through Martha Cadwallader's garden wicket into the half kitchen, half shop. After waiting a moment to ascertain the immediate state of Miss Cadwallader's domestic affairs, he rapped the pence, intrusted to him, pretty lustily on the top of the old counter; for this antique, red-nosed spinster of supposed genteel connexions, and owner of known deposits in certain country banks, was cosily enjoying herself before the great wood fire in the kitchen grate, on the other side of the counter; a little round table being nicely spread before her. On this stood a suspicious dish, and on the warm hob something still more mysterious, and beside it a very comfortable mug of ale, just beginning to be richly white upon the top. Now, it was much whispered in the village that Miss Cadwallader enjoyed, through the agency of Bump, the coachman, the monopoly of divers stray tid-bits from the squire's larder; that is to say, the tenth of a tongue, the tithe of a pheasant, or the third of a sponge-cake; or any other little delicacy in season. And the larger third of a very transparent red jelly, standing in a rich china plate, looked very suspicious on this occasion.

The Committee truly observe in their Report, that "our present inferior position in this respect, is unwor-aware who it was) and say, "wait a moment," and therethy of the power, the liberality, and the literature of the country," and they "feel convinced that the people of a country like our own-abounding in capital, in energy, and in an honest desire, not only to initiate, but to imitate, whatsoever is good and useful-will not long linger behind the people of other countries in the acquisition of such valuable institutions as freely accessible Public Libraries."

THE HIDDEN RING.

BY SILVERPEN.

By the time the tailor's apprentice had chinked his half-pence once or twice upon the counter, Miss Cadwallader condescended to look round (she was perfectly fore whilst behind the barricade of the large loaf, the drinking horn, and salt-cellar, she finished the remnants of a delicate little entremets warm upon the Squire's plate that very afternoon, Tim had time to survey the counter and window. Now, Miss Cadwallader, beside being the sole grocer, draper, druggist, flour-dealer, hatter, and bookseller, of this remote western English village, was also post-mistress; and in this latter office ruled and made laws both parochially and extraparochially, in the free-and-easy sort of way, usually supposed to be alone peculiar to kings ruling by the virtue of divine right. One law alone was fundamental and unabrogatable in this code of Cadwallader, namely, that "the squire must have his letters." Therefore whilst the fragmentary tid-bit was being gobbled, Tim had time to survey both window and counter; to number the red-herrings, the balls of string, the papered-up hats, the eggs, and the brushes; to long for the liquorice and bulls'-eyes in the glassbottles; to mentally weigh the amount of cheese, butter, and bacon; to carry his eye along the geometrical lines of the crossed pipes; to speculate upon the contents of divers packets of tea, starch, and black-lead, in the window, and of divers little paper funnels on the counter, containing half-penny-worths of tobacco, half ounces of tea, quarters of sugar, and ounces of coffee, lately weighed by her own hand, and so delicately adjusted in price to the ignorance, necessity, or needs of her rustic customers, as to bring in about two hundred per cent., not to her Tim, a queer shambling nondescript lad of about Majesty's Exchequer, but to her own. At length Tim's sixteen, scrambled off the board at this bidding, not, how-eye arriving gradually at the low desk on the counter, it ever, without upsetting, as he did so, both shears and spied two or three letters, the superscriptions on which goose, and had received the necessary half-pence from his he was just mastering, when Miss Cadwallader, susmistress, when the old tailor added, "don't forget a note pending her gastronomic delight over Mr. Bump's offeror two of the gamut as you run along. It's better than ing, approached the counter. Catching Tim's eye upon imitating Podd's cat or the doctor's dog. Do you hear?" the superscription of the letters, she interrupted his curi

"Tim," spoke the little old thin-faced tailor, as he removed his spectacles with his right hand, and laid his left gently on the sleeve-board across his knee, "just run to Martha Cadwallader's, and get me two skeins of whitey-brown thread, for Bump the coachman said, the squire wants these gaiters, and must have 'em. Of course, of course, it being agin a law in nat'r for sich as squires to wait."

"Howsomever don't say so to Martha, Tim," added a little old woman, who, fat and round as an October tun, was no other than the tailor's wife, "for she's a long, ay and a taking tongue up at the hall! And just too, beside the thread, bring half a pound of dips and a pound of moist sugar, which you mustn't put your finger in, nor break the candles."

ELIZA COOK'S JOURNAL.

osity, by throwing down the half-pound of sugar before him, and demanding the money. But Tim had had other instruction from his master besides that of solfa-ing, and he now out with it, for he had no fear of the postmistress.

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"Lord, mum, here's the blissed curate's letter; just the very one, I daresay, as Absalom Podd has often said Mr. Longnor has been looking out for this half year like." Parish boys," spoke Miss Cadwallader, with much As for the wrath, "should mind their own business. letter, the parson will get it soon enough in the morning, I dare say. The girl's sure to be in the village; for it's tea and coffee, candles and soap; and yet nothing but book, book. Four pounds eleven and ten pence three farthings down already, and no more sign of the money than o' me riding in a coach and six, and giving such credit."

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'Well, missis," still outspoke Tim, with a courage "master that did his good and honest nature justice, always says, the curate wouldn't wrong a cretur of a button or a needleful of thread; and as this may be the letter the poor gentleman has been expecting so long, You know I just let me run down the lane wi' it. I'll come and give your sty a sweep, or the weeds a pull. will."

But whether it was, or not, that Miss Cadwallader had not as yet tasted the creamed jug upon the hob, I know not, for she was inexorable, thrust forward the candles, sugar, and thread, counted the halfpence, said something of speaking to the squire about impudent apprentice-boys, and pointed to the door.

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tract of country which had once formed a portion of a wide extent of wild forest land, and the green sward of the hedge-rows into the rich turf peculiar to sylvan and lane terminated, and where began the ascent into the untrodden solitudes. At a stone's throw from where this more primeval forest land, ran a brook, crossed by a narParsonage," whose garden, row ford. On this side of it lay, on either hand, a primitive church and church-yard, and a low, thatched, rambling cottage, called the " rich in flowers and beehives, stretched far away beside the brawling brook. Little more than the forest-turf lay in front of the cottage, and knowing, by the sign of light in two of the casements, that Mr. Longnor was at home, the tailor gently rapped at the door, and at once lifting the latch entered a room, half parlour half kitchen, for the other. Crossing to the glowing, cheerful fire-place it had the adornments of the one, and the homeliness of (for in far-away country places such as this, where wood abounds, the nightly fire is rarely ever missed), and looking round the snugness of an old leather screen, drawn up to one corner of the fire-place, the good old tailor bowed thrice, as if before a potentate, and laid carved desk. Thus aroused, the abstract curate looked up the letter in silence upon Mr. Longnor's old quaintly with a quiet smile, and whilst he said, "Well! this is kind, Northwood," broke the seal with hands as tremulous as if they had received a galvanic shock. And well they might, for there dropped from it, whilst he read, a £5 Bank of England note; and the matter, though terse, was of such instant he had read it, rise, cross the kitchen, and tapping 'Dora, if yet awake, rise quickly great meaning and interest as to make Mr. Longnor, the 39 He then came back to the Tim reluctantly withdrew. Before, however, he had at a little door, say, well passed out of the garden wicket, he was called back, and come here, as good old Northwood has brought us a the letter thrust into his hand, with strict injunctions as letter, and there is news.' to its being delivered immediately; for having fallen once fire-place, and grasped the tailor's honest hand: "It is into serious difficulties with the post-office authorities, not of my book," he said, with a weary sigh, which told Miss Cadwallader (like the before-mentioned law-givers) painfully of months of expectancy and disappointment, was sufficiently politic to go as far as she dared in her" but news that is certainly flattering. The Society for self-constituted code, but yet to lay it aside the moment the Advancement of British Science, requiring some "Yes offer me, in this letter, the necessary mission, at a handthere was the smallest appearance of danger. Tim's geological verifications relative to a district in France, only answer was as impudent as it well could be. missis, it shall go as quick to the curate's as you'd carry some remuneration." it to the squire's ;" and without further word, the tailor's apprentice ran up the street, wholly innocent this time of his peculiar twilight recreation of knocking, pinching, or peeping, and without pausing an instant, he burst into the tailor's kitchen, in such an unusual and wild way, as to make both master, mistress, and Leah, the little maid, look towards him with eager amazement; particularly when he held up the letter with a sort of triumphal wave frightened CadwalSo above his head, and exclaimed, lader a bit, I think mum and sir, and got this." saying he gave the letter to his master, who, having left the board during Tim's absence, was now sitting in his arm-chair beside the fire. The curiosity was intense, for the old dame, who was knitting, and little Leah, who was laying the cloth for supper, were soon peeping over the tailor's shoulder to see the letter, and when they saw it was large and had a great seal, and that now the good old soul, the tailor, having duly examined the superscription, rose to fetch his coat and hat, in order to carry it himself, the curiosity of mistress, apprentice, and little maid, had passed all reasonable bounds.

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Taking it carefully in his hand, and bidding Tim put
by work for the night, and get his supper with Leah and
his mistress, the old man set out upon his walk, after
adding that none were to sit up for him beyond the ordi-
Soon leaving the village-
nary time of retiring to rest.
street he entered a green lane, which, slightly descend-
ing, was overhung with wide bushy hedge-rows, so
garnished here and there with old forest trees as meet-
ing from either side, formed one bosky canopy, which
quite shut out the rich soft twilight of this summer's
eve. In no great while these hedge-rows merged into a

"And just the very thing for you to accept, if I may
be so bold as to give an opinion," spoke the good tailor,
with his heart in his voice; "for such as care for you,
Mr. Longnor, have noticed your pale face this many a
week; and as for Miss Dora, not a rough wind of heaven
shall blow on her, if I or my dame, or Tim, or Leah,
can help it. So that mustn't be a hindrance, Sir-indeed
our little maid, or the good souls at the Barley Mow,
it mustn't."

The curate did not answer, for he had again risen, as
if impatient, and had already approached the door at
which he had previously rapped, when it opened, and a
young girl appeared. Her dress, though hastily put on,
and loosely arranged, was exquisite in its becomingness;
and as she stepped out, with naked feet, it fell round her
in such folds as a statuary might have chiselled. Already
aware that the good old tailor had brought a letter, she
hastened with tearful earnestness to a hassock beside the
fire, and listened whilst her father read; and as she sat
not often to charm our innate sense of what is pure, and
thus bending, her upturned face was such a one as comes
beautiful, and good; for it expressed childishness, love,
Hers was a small, frail, girlish figure, too;
hope, truth, and yet the grander qualities of intelligence
and resolve.

a bud rather than a flower; for whilst her small fair
arms were finely rounded, her naked feet all plump and
so profuse as to fall far below the boddice of her little frock,
dimpled, her remarkable and glorious ebon-coloured hair
yet her tiny hands, her little waist, her whole fragility,
No wonder is it, that sculpture is the grandest
told of few, few years, on this dear gentle mother-earth
of ours.
of artistic capabilities, when it has the attribute of

repre

1

senting forms like these; and freeing form from sense, and grace from mere mortality, so raises us, and lifts us yet, a little nearer, and a little nearer heaven, by yielding to our sight what, we well fancy, may be some likeness to its angels!

The curate read, and when he had finished, he dropped the letter from his hand, as if irresolute. But Dora intuitively knowing the secret of this irresolution, came to his side, and wound her little arms at once about his neck.

"If you love me, papa," she said earnestly, "you will go. It is the fullest summer-time, and every one will be good to me, I am sure; and isn't old Absalom Podd almost as tender to me as yourself, and isn't dear old Northwood here like a second father, and is there not besides these, Tim and Ruth, and Leah, and Lucy Gray across Clun Forest, and Brindle and Ned, and the bees and flowers! Think a minute of it, dearest papa, and you will find I shall be amused. You must go; indeed you must, if only for your health!"

So Dora talked, the old tailor persuaded, the curate listened, and at last consented. Upon again referring to the letter, it was found by its post-mark to have been a full day in the custody of Miss Cadwallader; the time given for preparation and reaching London being thus lessened to the following evening, when, if Mr. Longnor undertook the journey at all, he must reach the nearest high-road and travel by that night's western mail. This important step thus decided upon, and its otherwise great obstacle removed by the £5 Bank of England note enclosed within the letter, immediate preparations had to be commenced. Thus there was a long message to be delivered, the first thing in the morning, to Absalom Podd, the landlord of the village inn, the Barley Mow; then a letter to write, for Northwood to send, by the special hand of Tim, to the curate of a neighbouring village, asking him to do duty onoe a fortnight during Mr. Longnor's absence; and lastly, this fine soul stepped gently across the kitchen to the clock, brought from a peg beside it his sole black coat, and placed it in the tailor's hand.

"If you black the seams a bit, Northwood, and darn the cuffs, and put on new buttons, it 'll do, I think, bravely," he said with much cheerfulness; " and when I come back there'll be a new coat, and what's more, a frock for baby Dora here (in love he often called her so), for you see

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"Yes, yes," quickly interrupted the old tailor, in a voice so tremulous, so quick, and yet so hearty, that one less abstracted than the curate, would have noticed it; "the seams shall be quite black, Sir, the cuffs all right, the buttons new, and the best shall be done with thread and needle, and all in time." Thus saying, and taking the old black coat upon his arm, the good tailor withdrew in much precipitation, under the sudden pretext that the hour was late.

Once alone, this fine noble soul, wasted, and wan, and ascetic, and past middle life, sunk into his old worn chair beside the fire, and Dora drew her little hassock to his feet. Thus father and child sat talking long and far into the night; talking in such a way as to make it, as it were, a pity for so much sense, persuasion, absence of self and self-consideration, to die, unheard by other ears, upon the stillness of the night; for I believe, as fully as I believe in the great predominance of good over evil, that if communions such as these could be set down by recording pens at half their worth, the very words of man himself would testify to the divineness of my creed.

"I must have had some powerful friend in this business, my Dora," spoke this fine nature, wholly unconscious that his splendid acquirements, both as a geologist, especially in relation to this Silurian district, and as a scientific man, were well known, "and I can

think of no other than Mr. Riddle. His name does not appear, but his is the friendly hand.”

It is certainly no other, papa," replied Dora; "for we live in this far-away place, and can be known but to few."

"But when we have one grand, one large-souled friend, my dear one, like Walter Riddle, think how many small, narrow-minded ones it stands in place of. Yes, he has both a splendid mind, and a noble soul to bear it company; and though I am the poorest curate amidst these far-away hills, I often think myself the very richest, simply in knowing a man so splendid and so just."

"And I, papa," said Dora, "fancy often I know as much about him as if I had seen him every day, though I have not since I was five years old, and now in three weeks, I shall be fifteen. But we talk much about him, and this makes him familiar to me, though I remember little more than that he was tall and grave, and what now I should call stern."

"But he remembers you, Dora, well. As I have often told you, he talked repeatedly of you when I was at Broadwood last year; indeed so often as to take an interest in you, like, as if you were, his own child. He spoke admiringly of your simple, pure, child's life amidst these lonely hills, of my scholarly rearing of you, of your proficiency, and often asked if your beauty in any way fulfilled the promise of your babyhood. I said I scarcely knew, though you were good and kind, and eager to be taught; for the rest I added, he himself shall paint the picture when he comes to see us, which he promised to do. And I count of your seeing him face to face, my dear one; for if you are yet too young to fully comprehend his genius, you will recollect, that he has been my pupil, that his friendship is dear to me, and that you will regard him, reverence him, and I may almost say, obey his scholarly advice, for my sake." "I am sure I shall, papa; your words are always laws."

As she thus answered the curate paused, for the church clock striking two hours past midnight, he, after a few further words about the morrow, embraced her tenderly, and dismissed her to her chamber. Thus separated, young Dora did not see the tears which fell, nor the chill sorrow which strangely crept over this dear father; nor, fortunately, did he see his child's assumed cheerfulness melt into bitterest grief, as she crouched down at the foot of her little bed and thought of the morrow. But by-and-by, when the long wick of the candle had assumed the mushroom top it does when long unsnuffed, she trimmed it, gently rose (for by this time her father had entered his own chamber), and opened a little papercovered box which stood in one corner of the room. Small as it was, it contained almost her whole wardrobe; and after due search therein she brought, carefully folded up, from the bottom, a little white frock, which might have been worn by a child of four or five years' old. It was a precious relic, for it was one her dead mother had arrayed her in newly, on the occasion of some little childish festival; and it had been laid by with tender reverence, only to serve some purpose as sacred as it was now to serve. For reaching her work-bag, bringing the little round table to the bed's foot, and producing two or three poor tattered shirts from an old drawer, she dived the scissors deep, without hesitation, into the sacred garment, cut frills to make these poor rags more passable, and as the night wore on, as the candle burnt lower and lower, as the lonely church-clock tolled the hours, as the scattered forest boughs soughed gently to and fro, as the clear mountain brook rippled, and rippled on, a sweet serenity soothed her guileless and most loving heart, and made the task as dear and light a one, as any yet recorded of fair ministering spirits.

Another task of the same sort was proceeding elsewhere; for, as soon as he had latched the parsonage door,

old Northwood tucked the coat under his arm, and hastened his pace into a run, till breathlessly he stood an instant beneath his cottage eaves. Unlatching this door (for in these primitive parts of England, the house-door is rarely locked even through the night), and entering with a gentle footfall, that would not have disturbed the lightest sleeper, he found, as he expected, that the whole of his little household had retired to rest, but the fire, carefully plied with fuel, burnt cheerfully in the wide old-fashioned grate. Rousing it into a still warmer glow, he lighted a candle, fetched a bit of supper from the pantry, and when caten, replaced the plate with his well-worn bible, put on his spectacles, and sat reverently down. The book on this night, as if it had power to point out its own lesson, opened at the fifth chapter of St. Matthew, where the Divine Sermon on the Mount glorifies with its sublime morality the sacred page. And so he read, as it were, by intuition, "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy;" and so having read, he resolved, whilst he paused a moment, to follow out the promptings of his heart. And so resolved, he read on; and from this to a newer chapter and a newer verse, "That when thou doest alms let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth, that thy alms may be in secret." Thus with this resolution, and the manner of its accomplishment fixed in his mind, he reverently paused when he had ended, and prepared himself, his candle, his board for a night's work, took a quaint key from his pocket, and unlocked an old buffet, took a small roll of cloth therefrom, though of the finest texture and the deepest black, took shears and cut a coat the pattern of the one he had brought to mend, and then mounting his well-worn board, plied with earnest, steady fingers, the swiftest needle which ever served in any honest worthy work. And thus the hours went on, work, work, work, work; and yet no weariness, for it was holy service.

Beyond some few directions to honest Podd, the worthy landlord of the Barley Mow, there was little for Mr. Longnor to do; for merely saying, "I place Dora in your charge, and all besides,' was just the same as if the trust were minutely detailed in the lengthiest scroll of parchment, and sealed with the binding seal of priest or king. But quite resolutely, and with womanly decision, Dora at once negatived Podd's proposition, that she should take up her abode wholly at the Barley Mow; and as the barest thought of quitting home, the dear household home, seemed to give her pain, her father soon consented. But full allowance was given to Podd to come and work in the garden, for Tim to run errands and milk Brindle, and for Ruth to lay aside her service in the little bar of the Barley Mow every evening by nine o'clock, for the purpose of sleeping at the parsonage. "Well, well," mumbled Podd, “I'm only to work in the garden, and see to the meadow and orchard, am I? but I'll make Dora, na'ertheless, the best guarded flower in the country, for a-dear her beauty be a touching thing." Thus mumbling, of which he had a great habit, Mr. Podd withdrew, promising to be at the church-yard gate with his old-fashioned gig at the very stroke of eight that eve.

and then set about making his old-fashioned gig as trim and as snug as possible, and in providing it with a due number of warm caped coats for the journey.

This eventful day wore quickly away both with the curate and Dora; for the one had many papers to get ready and arrange, and the other a hundred labours of love to perform, to wash, and iron, and set in order the two poor shirts plied by such angel fingers.

After the evening's refreshment of tea, Mr. Longnor rose and said, “As neither Podd nor Northwood are yet come, my Dora, we will go a little walk;" and knowing what he meant, she followed him with reverend feet. They passed into the shadowed garden together; from thence across the mossied road-way, into the grey and still churchyard. The sun was sinking, and thus threw long strips of golden glory over many graves; making in the splendour of their decking, no difference between moss and stone, poor peasant resting-place, or dust of wealth and birth; for in the embrace of beauty, one law of pure equality alone is ruling potentate. So on the lowliest, though sunniest grave, niched in the very quaintest and most ivied buttress of the old grey walls, they knelt together long in silence, for the hearts of both were over full for words. At last, however, the curate said, "The sweetest spirit of thy mother watch over thee in my absence, Dora, and guard thee, dear one, and keep thee safe, as the most precious thing I hold in life."

"I shall be safe, I shall be safe," sobbed Dora; "nothing can harm me, nothing can change me! God above, and my mother's dust so near, what harm can come?" She said this with a light heart, and rose; for the welcome richness of the sinking sun, the trickling and the babbling of the water, the garniture of the forest boughs, the scent of the ferny woodlands and the garden flowers, all served to calm their grief, and shed a balmy influence on their souls. As they passed through the mossied churchyard gate, the curate produced a key from his waistcoat pocket: "This must be yours, my Dora," he said, as he placed the key into the half-upraised, halfclosed hands of the weeping girl, "for it belongs to the drawers so long kept locked. When I am gone, this night I wish it, as hallowing your lonely home, with all that is unperished of the beautiful, the pure, the good, unlock these drawers, and look on what has remained untouched since the day she died. And seeing, take what is there and make them yours; her bridal gown and all, for her sweet sake." Thus speaking, they entered the house. Here they beheld Podd and the tailor, both so excessively happy and merry, that, though the cause was concealed, their cheerfulness gave Mr. Longnor spirits at once. And rightly they laughed, for Northwood had done so astonishing a job as to fully hide every white seam, make the cuffs glossy, and the buttons firm; and Podd had carefully strapped up the little portmanteau, and brought it to the door. How kind was this! The new hat could not so well escape detection; but the instant it was discovered by Dora, worthy Absalom made such a sudden grumbling about its being late, and that that night's mail would be certainly lost, that nothing more could be said or done than to put the little portmanteau into the gig, for this fine soul and good soul to bless, and tear himself Something like honest Northwood, Podd was full of away from, his passionately weeping child, and wave his weighty thought as he ascended to the village, and imme-hand with mute significance to the old tailor, so bent and diately saddling and mounting his old grey mare, he downward faced, as more to conjecture this farewell, than proceeded to an adjacent village, and finding up an to see it. honest pedlar, who occasionally dwelt there, commissioned him to come and purchase the very best beaver hat in Miss Cadwallader's shop, as if some far-away gentleman had given him the job, and after that to bring it up at once to the Barley Mow. Then hastening homeward, ha unlocked a ponderous oak bureau, took from thence four Holland shirts of curious fineness, only used on high days and holidays, and doing them carefully up in a silk pocket-handkerchief, laid the parcel ready in the bar,

The young girl watched the gig till out of sight, and then returned to the solitary house, and closed the door. The old tailor respected her feelings too much to trespass on this desire for privacy, and so took his way home. But, by-and-by, Dora's passionate grief lessened, and remembering her father's last injunction, "as she loved him, to be cheerful," she closed the rustic shutters, put more wood on the fire, drew the comfortable chair and little green baize-covered table near, laved her face and

hands, smoothed her beautiful and abundant tresses, and then brought the candle to the drawers so long untouched. These stood in a recess beside the fire-place, and beneath a shelf consecrated by some of her father's rarest books-thus were the sacred things of the dead and living in close companionship. The locks were very full of dust; but after slight difficulty, the first drawer was opened, just covered and put as hands long perished had laid them-gown and scarf, petticoat and shawl. The first thing, almost, which attracted her attention, was a small white gown; a girlish simple thing, almost fitted for herself. An irresistible impulse came over her to put it on, and so coming and setting down the candle upon the little table before the fire, she unfastened her humble frock, and robed herself in its trim, simple nicety short sleeves, low boddice, without one single ornament upon them. It was and yet scarcely seemed too large. One half hour's labour with the needle, a wash in the limpid running brook, ten minutes on the fullest rosetree of the glorious June, and it would be fitted to serve again, what it had once served, a bridal. As she stood thus, it only fastened on in negligent disorder, never had the old distant mirror, on which the fire-light stole, reflected back a simpler, purer, more perfect little human creature, the whole wealth of whose passionately loving heart lived in those glad large eyes, as they travelled up from hem to sleeve, from boddice back to hem again! She stood as pure a thing as opening bud to its first morning sun!

Thus, as she stood, half mournfully-half gladly, thinking of a hundred things which yet linked her to her dead mother, some hand knocked several times upon the porch door. It could not be Ruth, who could not come till ten on this night of Podd's absence-it could not be Northwood or Tim-it was, perhaps, some one of the distant parishioners ignorant, as yet, of Mr. Longnor's departure, or a traveller, asking the way;-without hesitation she crossed the kitchen, opened the door full wide, and a stranger, a tall, dark, stern-faced man, of middle age, stood before her. She stood, though thus in the doorway, in the full glow of the strong light which shone from the warm hearth, quite irresolute and speechless, looking up into his remarkable face. He was a stranger, but not a beggar or traveller-she knew not what to say. At last he stooped down, and, in a low voice, said,-his intense gaze never once moved from off her face, her girlish figure, her wonderfully becoming little gown; "Dora Longnor?"

"Yes sir;" and as she said so, she dropped a little curtsey; lowly, so very lowly, as if he were the greatest of the earth.

"And I, Walter Riddle;" and as he spoke he took her very little hand within his large one, and came within the kitchen and closed the door. As if expecting to see the curate, he came at once to the fire place, and looked round the screen,-" And your father," he asked, in a voice of surprise.

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'Gone, Sir, this very evening. We thought you She spoke tremulously, for the intense gaze had never been once removed.

knew."

He sat down at once in her father's old study chair, still looking upon her so fixedly, and said, "Tell me !" In her own artless way, still standing, though shrouding her arms together as if to hide their roundness, she told Mr. Riddle of the whole circumstance of her father's absence.

He seemed surprised. Association some months ago," he said, "as a capa

"I mentioned him to the

Dora about herself; she still standing artlessly with her arms bent down before her.

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And why this gown, Dora, is it a holiday?"

"My mother's bridal gown, Sir," and thinking of her, she burst into tears. Riddle drew her to his side; and, as if at her father's knees, she sat down upon the little hassock. Presently she told him of the scene that evening by the grave, of the dusty locks, of the drawers, of this, her mother's bridal gown; he listened intently, the whole tale was done, and her tears were dry. "And you had never put it on before, only thus as I came?"

"I had never even seen it. An hour since, and it lay where the dead had put it, and the very flowers and pins, of my poor mother's marriage-day, still within." The large hand trembled; the small hand felt the vibration.

For many minutes the stern man sat silent; then he suddenly began to talk about her studies, bid her fetch her father's Schiller from its shelf, and taking a short, full-bowled little pipe from his pocket, which he called his "Churchwarden," lighted it, and bid her read to him. She brought the book, sat down again upon the hassock at his feet, he smoked, occasionally corrected her, or praised, but never once removed his gaze from off her face.

In this new relation of scholar and master, all other than a modest fear left the girl; and sitting thus, all the unconscious purity of her nature outshone, and for the full confidence between them, they might have been reading this immortal poetry together for an age!

And thus they sat together; Mr. Churchwarden having his old, black, smoky cavity replenished, several times, before this long lesson in Schiller was over. At length, some minutes after the book was closed, Mr. Riddle rose to go, which, as he did, a large shaggy hound crawled out from beneath one of the chairs, where it had been resting. Dora rose, too, from off the hassock, and brought the empty churchwarden from the hob, on which it lay forgotten, and with it the candle, towards the door. As he took his little short thick Dutchman from her hand, and held that little hand within his own, he stooped a moment involuntarily, as if to kiss her; then, as if suddenly impelled by a more sacred and holy feeling, he merely pressed this little hand with kindly fervour, bowed low before her, as if in homage of her purity and unconscious trust, and saying that he should be there again in the morning, as he had already bespoken a lodging at the Barley Mow, he latched the door, and stepped out upon the fresh and balmy night.

With a light glad heart, proud of her master and the night's lesson, Dora went back to look anew at the Schiller, but it was gone. Yet scarcely she needed a book; there

was so much on this night to think about, to wonder at, to reverence, that there she sat, still in the same posture still in the long-past bridal dress, still as an early primrose opening to the sun, when Ruth, escorted by, and long lingering with, a village beau, rapped lightly at the

door.

Till then, upon the broad, low, ancient churchyard wall, leaned a man; till then, a shaggy hound lay silent at his feet; till then, was innocence and goodness surely guarded, and only some half hour after, did the Barley Mow receive its new-come guest.

(To be continued in our next.)

Notices of New Works.

Howard: the Philanthropist.*

ble person, in case the verifications respecting Auvergne To John Howard with infinitely more truth than and the Puy de Dome were needed. At that time they said they had a candidate of their own, if one were to the elder Mirabeau, may be applied the epithet wanted. I had thus quite forgotten the circumstances, which that stern father arrogated to himself, of the though seemingly so well remembered by themselves." *John Howard and the Prison World of Europe, by Hepworth

This enquiry ended, he began immediately to talk to Dixon. Jackson and Walford, 1849.

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