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From the inn-yard came a hackney chaise, in a most deplorably crazy state; the body mounted up to a prodigious height, on unbending springs, nodding forward, one door swinging open, three blinds up, because they could not be let down, the perch tied in two places, the iron of the wheels half off, half loose, wooden pegs for linch-pins, and ropes for harness. The horses were worthy of the harness; wretched little dog-tired creatures, that looked as if they had been driven to the last gasp, and as if they had never been rubbed down in their lives; their bones starting through their skin; one lame, the other blind; one with a raw back, the other with a galled breast; one with his neck poking down over his collar, and the other with his head dragged forward by a bit of a broken bridle, held at arm's-length by a man dressed like a mad beggar, in half a hat and half a wig, both awry in opposite directions; a long tattered coat, tied round his waist by a hay-rope; the jagged rents in the skirts of this coat shewing his bare legs, marbled of many colours; while something like stockings hung loose about his ankles. The noises he made, by way of threatening or encouraging his steeds, I pretend not to describe. In an indignant voice I called to the landlord: 'I hope these are not the horses-I hope this is not the chaise intended for my servants.' The innkeeper, and the pauper who was preparing to officiate as postillion, both in the same instant exclaimed: 'Sorrow better chaise in the county!? 'Sorrow!' said I-' what do you mean by sorrow?' 'That there's no better, plase your honour, can be seen. We have two more, to be sure; but one has no top, and the other no bottom. Any way, there's no better can be seen than this same.' And these horses!' cried I: 'why, this horse is so lame he can hardly stand.' 'Oh, plase your honour, though he can't stand, he'll go fast enough. He has a great deal of the rogue in him, plase your honour. He's always that way at first setting out.' And that wretched animal with the galled breast! He's all the better for it when once he warms; it's he that will go with the speed of light, plase your honour. Sure, is not he Knockecroghery? and didn't I give fifteen guineas for him, barring the luckpenny, at the fair of Knockecroghery, and he rising four year old at the same time?'

Then seizing his whip and reins in one hand, he clawed up his stockings with the other; so with one easy step he got into his place, and seated himself, coachman-like, upon a well-worn bar of wood, that served as a coach-box. Throw me the loan of a trusty, Bartly, for a cushion,' said he. A frieze-coat was thrown up over the horses' heads. Paddy caught it. 'Where are you, Hosey?' cried he to a lad in charge of the leaders. 'Sure I'm only rowling a wisp of straw on my leg,' replied Hosey. 'Throw me up,' added this paragon of postillions, turning to one of the crowd of idle by-standers. Arrah, push me up, can't ye?' A man took hold of his knee, and threw him upon the horse. He was in his seat in a trice. Then clinging

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by the mane of his horse, he scrambled for the bridle, which was under the other horse's feet, reached it, and, well satisfied with himself, looked round at Paddy, who looked back to the chaise-door at my angry servants, 'secure in the last event of things.' In vain the | Englishman, in monotonous anger, and the Frenchman in every note of the gamut, abused Paddy. Necessity and wit were on Paddy's side. He parried all that was said against his chaise, his horses, himself, and his country with invincible comic dexterity; till at last, both his adversaries, dumfounded, clambered into the vehicle, where they were instantly shut up in straw and darkness. Paddy, in a triumphant tone, called to my postillions, bidding them 'get on, and not be stopping the way any longer.'

One of the horses becomes restive:

'Never fear,' reiterated Paddy. 'I'll engage I'll be up wid him. Now for it, Knockecroghery! O the rogue, he thinks he has me at a nonplush; but I'll shew him the differ?

After this brag of war, Paddy whipped, Knockecroghery kicked, and Paddy, seemingly unconscious of danger, sat within reach of the kicking horse, twitching up first one of his legs, then the other, and shifting as the animal aimed his hoofs, escaping every time as it were by miracle. With a mixture of temerity and presence of mind, which made us alternately look upon him as a madman and a hero, he gloried in the danger, secure of success, and of the sympathy of the spectators.

'Ah! didn't I compass him cleverly then? O the villain, to be browbating me! I'm too 'cute for him yet. See there, now; he's come to; and I'll be his bail he'll go asy enough wid me. Ogh! he has a fine spirit of his own; but it's I that can match him. 'Twould be a poor case if a man like me couldn't match a horse any way, let alone a mare, which this is, or it

never would be so vicious.'

English Shyness, or 'Mauvaise Honte.

Lord William had excellent abilities, knowledge, and superior qualities of every sort, all depressed by excessive timidity, to such a degree as to be almost useless to himself and to others. Whenever he was, either for the business or pleasure of life, to meet or mix with numbers, the whole man was, as it were, snatched from himself. He was subject to that nightmare of the soul who seats himself upon the human breast, oppresses the heart, palsies the will, and raises spectres of dismay which

the sufferer combats in vain-that cruel enchantress

you shall

who hurls her spell even upon childhood, and when she makes youth her victim, pronounces: Henceforward never appear in your natural character. Innocent, you shall look guilty; wise, you shall look silly; never shall you have the use of your natural faculties. That which you wish to say, you shall not say; that which you wish to do, you shall not do. You shall appear reserved when you are enthusiastic-insensible, when your heart sinks into melting tenderness. In the presence of those whom you most wish to please, you shall be most awkward; and when approached by her you love, you shall become lifeless as a statue, and under the irresistible spell of mauvaise honte.' Strange that France should give name to that malady of mind which she never knew, or of which she knows less than any other nation upon the surface of the civilised globe!

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did not live to witness the fruits of his daughter's Her love is not a blind passion, the offspring of talents. After the death of the rector, his widow romance; nor has she any of that morbid colourand two daughters retired to Southampton, and ing of the darker passions in which other novelists subsequently to the village of Chawton, in the excel. The clear daylight of nature, as reflected same county, where the novels of Jane Austen were in domestic life, in scenes of variety and sorrowwritten. Of these, four were published anony- ful truth, as well as of vivacity and humour, is her mously in her lifetime, the first in 1811, and the genial and inexhaustible element. Instruction is last in 1816-namely, Sense and Sensibility, Pride always blended with amusement. A finer moral and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, and Emma. In lesson cannot anywhere be found than the distress May 1817, the health of the authoress rendered it of the Bertram family in Mansfield Park, arising necessary that she should remove to some place from the vanity and callousness of the two where constant medical aid could be procured. daughters, who had been taught nothing but She went to Winchester, and in that city she accomplishments,' without any regard to their expired, on the 24th of July 1817, aged forty-two. dispositions and temper. These instructive exHer personal worth, beauty, and genius made her amples are brought before us in action, not by early death deeply lamented; while the public lecture or preachment, and they tell with double had to 'regret the failure not only of a source of force because they are not inculcated in a didactic innocent amusement, but also of that supply of style. The genuine but unobtrusive merits of practical good sense and instructive example Miss Austen have been but poorly rewarded by which she would probably have continued to the public as respects fame and popularity, though furnish better than any of her contemporaries.'* her works are now rising in public esteem. The insidious decay or consumption which carried Walter Scott, after reading Pride and Prejudice off Miss Austen seemed only to increase the for the third time, thus mentions the merits of powers of her mind. She wrote while she could Miss Austen in his private diary: 'That young hold a pen or pencil; and, the day preceding her lady had a talent for describing the involvements, death, composed some stanzas replete with fancy and feelings, and characters of ordinary life, and vigour. Shortly after her death, her friends which is to me the most wonderful I ever met gave to the world two novels, entitled Northanger with. The big bow-wow strain I can do myself, Abbey and Persuasion, the first being her earliest like any now going; but the exquisite touch which composition, and the least valuable of her pro-renders ordinary commonplace things and characductions, while the latter is a highly finished work, ters interesting from the truth of the description especially in the tender and pathetic passages. and the sentiment, is denied to me. What a pity The great charm of Miss Austen's fictions lies in such a gifted creature died so early!' their truth and simplicity. She gives us plain representations of English society in the middle and higher classes—sets us down, as it were, in the country-house, the villa, and cottage, and introduces us to various classes of persons, whose characters are displayed in ordinary intercourse and most lifelike dialogues and conversation. There is no attempt to express fine things, nor any scenes of surprising daring or distress, to make us forget that we are among commonplace mortals and real existence. Such materials would seem to promise little for the novel-reader, yet Miss Austen's minute circumstances and common details are far from tiresome. They all aid in developing and discriminating her characters, in which her chief strength lies, and we become so intimately acquainted with each, that they appear as old friends or neighbours. She is quite at home in describing the mistakes in the education of young ladies-in delicate ridicule of female foibles and vanity-in family differences, obstinacy, and pride-in the distinctions between the different classes of society, and the nicer shades of feeling and conduct, as they ripen into love or friendship, or subside into indifference or dislike.

* Dr Whately, archbishop of Dublin (Quarterly Review, 1821). The same critic thus sums up his estimate of Miss Austen's works: "They may be safely recommended, not only as among the most unexceptionable of their class, but as combining, in an eminent degree, instruction with amusement, though without the direct effort at the former, of which we have complained as sometimes defeating its object. For those who cannot or will not learn anything from productions of this kind, she has provided entertainment which entitles her to thanks; for mere innocent amusement is in itself a good, when it interferes with no greater, especially as it may occupy the place of some other that may not be innocent. The eastern monarch who proclaimed a reward to him who should discover a new pleasure, would have deserved well of mankind had he stipulated that it should be blameless. Those, again, who delight in the study of human nature, may improve in the knowledge of it, and in the profitable application of that knowledge, by the perusal of such fictions as those before us.'

Dialogue on Constancy of Affection.—From Persuasion.”

"Your feelings may be the strongest,' replied Anne, 'but ours are the most tender. Man is more robust than woman, but he is not longer lived, which exactly explains my views of the nature of their attachments. Nay, it would be hard upon you, if it were otherwise. You have difficulties, and privations, and dangers enough to struggle with. You are always labouring and toiling, exposed to every risk and hardship. Your home, country, friends all quitted. Neither time, nor health, nor life to be called your own. It would be hard indeed' (with a faltering voice) if woman's feelings were to be added to all this.'

'We shall never agree upon this point,' Captain Harville said. 'No man and woman would, probably. But let me observe that all histories are against you, all If I had such a memory as stories, prose and verse. Benwick, I could bring you fifty quotations in a moment on my side of the argument, and I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman's inconstancy. Songs and proverbs all! talk of woman's fickleness. But perhaps you will say these were all written by men.'

'Perhaps I shall. Yes, yes, if you please, no reference to examples in books. Men have every advantage of 1$ in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in a much higher degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything.'

'But how shall we prove anything?'

'We never shall. We never can expect to prove anything upon such a point. It is a difference of opinion which does not admit of proof. We each begin probably with a little bias towards our own sex, and upon that bias build every circumstance in favour of it which has occurred within our own circle: many of which circumstances (perhaps those very cases which strike us the most) may be precisely such as cannot be brought forward without betraying a confidence, or, in some respect, saying what should not be said.'

"Ah!' cried Captain Harville, in a tone of strong feeling, if I could but make you comprehend what a man suffers when he takes a last look at his wife and children, and watches the boat that he has sent them off in, as long as it is in sight, and then turns away and says, "God knows whether we ever meet again!" And then if I could convey to you the glow of his soul when he does see them again; when, coming back after a twelvemonth's absence, perhaps, and obliged to put in to another port, he calculates how soon it will be possible to get them there, pretending to deceive himself, and saying, "They cannot be here till such a day," but all the while hoping for them twelve hours sooner, and seeing them arrive at last, as if Heaven had given them wings, by many hours sooner still! If I could explain to you all this, and all that a man can bear and do, and glories to do, for the sake of these treasures of his existence! I speak, you know, only of such men as have hearts!'-pressing his own with emotion.

'Oh,' cried Anne eagerly, 'I hope I do justice to all that is felt by you, and by those who resemble you. God forbid that I should undervalue the warm and faithful feelings of any of my fellow-creatures. I should deserve utter contempt if I dared to suppose that true attachment and constancy were known only by woman. No, I believe you capable of everything great and good in your married lives. I believe you equal to every important exertion, and to every domestic forbearance, so long as if I may be allowed the expression-so long as you have an object. I mean, while the woman you love lives, and lives for you. All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one, you need not covet it) is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone.'

She could not immediately have uttered another sentence. Her heart was too full, her breath too much oppressed.

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However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.

'My dear Mr Bennet,' said his lady to him one day, have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?'' Mr Bennet replied that he had not.

'Is that his design in settling here?' 'Design! Nonsense; how can you talk so! But it is very likely he may fall in love with one of them, and therefore you must visit him as soon as he comes.'

'I see no occasion for that. You and the girls may go, or you may send them by themselves, which perhaps will be still better, for as you are as handsome as any of them, Mr Bingley might like you the best of the party.' 'My dear, you flatter me. I certainly have had my share of beauty, but I do not pretend to be anything extraordinary now. When a woman has five grown-up daughters, she ought to give over thinking of her own beauty.'

"In such cases, a woman has not often much beauty to think of.'

'But, my dear, you must indeed go and see Mr Bingley when he comes into the neighbourhood.' 'It is more than I engage for, I assure you.' 'But consider your daughters. Only think what an establishment it would be for one of them. Sir William and Lady Lucas are determined to go, merely on that account, for, in general, you know, they visit no newcomers. Indeed you must go, for it will be impossible for us to visit him if you do not.'

'You are over-scrupulous, surely. I dare say Mr Bingley will be very glad to see you; and I will send a few lines by you to assure him of my hearty consent to his marrying whichever he chooses of the girls; though I must throw in a good word for my little Lizzy.'

'I desire you will do no such thing. Lizzy is not a bit better than the others; and I am sure she is not half so handsome as Jane, nor half so good-humoured as Lydia. But you are always giving her the preference.'

"They have none of them much to recommend them,' replied he; 'they are all silly and ignorant, like other girls; but Lizzy has something more of quickness than her sisters.'

'Mr Bennet, how can you abuse your own children in such a way! You take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion on my poor nerves.' 'You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these twenty years at least.'

'Ah! you do not know what I suffer.'

'But I hope you will get over it, and live to see many young men of four thousand a year come into the neigh

bourhood.'

'It will be no use to us, if twenty such should come, since you will not visit them.'

'Depend upon it, my dear, that when there are twenty,

"But it is,' returned she; for Mrs Long has just been I will visit them all.' here, and she told me all about it.'

Mr Bennet made no answer.

'Do you not want to know who has taken it?' cried his wife impatiently.

'You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it.'

This was invitation enough.

'Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs Long says that Netherfield is taken by a young man of large fortune from the north of England; that he came down on Monday in a chaise and four to see the place, and was so much delighted with it, that he agreed with Mr Morris immediately; that he is to take possession before Michaelmas, and some of his servants are to be in the house by the end of next week.'

'What is his name?'

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Mr Bennet was so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour, reserve, and caprice, that the experience of three-and-twenty years had been insufficient to make his wife understand his character. Her mind was less difficult to develop. She was a woman of mean understanding, little information, and uncertain temper. When she was discontented, she fancied herself nervous. The business of her life was to get her daughters married; its solace was visiting and news.

MRS BRUNTON.

MRS MARY BRUNTON, authoress of Self-control and Discipline, two novels of superior merit and moral tendency, was born on the 1st of November 1778. She was a native of Burray, in Orkney, a small island of about 600 inhabitants, no part of which is more than 300 feet above the level of the sea, and which is destitute of tree or shrub. In this remote and sea-surrounded region the parents of Mary Brunton occupied a leading station. Her father was Colonel Balfour of Elwick, and her mother, an accomplished woman,

the whole cares and duties of the household

few more the mountains of Cape Breton sank behind the wave. The brisk gales of autumn wafted the vessel cheerfully on her way; and often did Laura compute her progress.

niece of Field-marshal Lord Ligonier, in whose house she had resided previous to her marriage. Mary was carefully educated, and instructed by her mother in the French and Italian languages. She was also sent some time to Edinburgh; but In a clear frosty morning towards the end of Septemwhile she was only sixteen, her mother died, and ber she heard once more the cry of 'Land!' now music to her ear. Now with a beating breast she ran to gaze devolved on her. With these she was incess-upon a ridge of mountains indenting the disk of the rising sun; but the tears of rapture dimmed her eyes antly occupied for four years, and at the expira- when every voice at once shouted 'Scotland!' tion of that time she was married to the Rev. Mr Brunton, minister of Bolton, in Haddingtonshire. In 1803 Mr Brunton was called to one of the churches in Edinburgh, and his lady had thus an opportunity of meeting with persons of literary talent, and of cultivating her mind. Till I began Self-control,' she says in one of her letters, 'I had never in my life written anything but a letter or a recipe, excepting a few hundreds of vile rhymes, from which I desisted by the time I had gained the wisdom of fifteen years; therefore I was so ignorant of the art on which I was entering, that I formed scarcely any plan for my tale. I merely intended to shew the power of the religious principle in bestowing self-command, and to bear testimony against a maxim as immoral as indelicate, that a reformed rake makes the best husband.' Self-control was published without the author's name in 1811. The first edition was sold in a month, and a second and third were called for. In 1814, her second work, Discipline, was given to the world, and was also well received. She began a third, Emmeline, but did not live to finish it. She died on the 7th of December 1818. The unfinished tale, with a memoir of its lamented authoress, was published in one volume by her husband, Dr Brunton.

Self-control bids fair to retain a permanent place among British novels, as a sort of Scottish Calebs, recommended by its moral and religious tendency, no less than by the talent it displays.

The acute observation of the authoress is seen in

the development of little traits of character and conduct, which give individuality to her portraits, and a semblance of truth to the story. Thus the

gradual decay, mental and bodily, of Montreville, the account of the De Courcys, and the courtship of Montague, are true to nature, and completely removed out of the beaten track of novels. The plot is very unskilfully managed. The heroine, Laura, is involved in a perpetual cloud of difficulties and dangers, some of which-as the futile abduction by Warren, and the arrest at Lady Pelham's are unnecessary and improbable. The character of Hargrave seems to have been taken from that of Lovelace, and Laura is the Clarissa of the tale. Her high principle and purity, her devotion to her father, and the force and energy of her mind-without overstepping feminine softnessimpart a strong interest to the narrative of her trials and adventures. She surrounds the whole, as it were, with an atmosphere of moral light and beauty, and melts into something like consistency and unity the discordant materials of the tale.

Sensations on returning to Scotland. With tears in her eyes Laura took leave of her benevolent host; yet her heart bounded with joy as she saw the vessel cleaving the tide, and each object in the dreaded land of exile swiftly retiring from her view. In a few days that dreaded land disappeared. In a

All day Laura remained on deck, oft measuring with the light splinter the vessel's course through the deep. The winds favoured not her impatience. Towards evening they died away, and scarcely did the vessel steal along the liquid mirror. Another and another morning came, and Laura's ear was blessed with the first sounds of her native land. The tolling of a bell was borne along the water, now swelling loud, and now falling softly away. The humble village church was seen on the shore; and Laura could distinguish the gay colouring of her countrywomen's Sunday attire; the scarlet plaid, transmitted from generation to generation, pinned decently over the plain clean coif; the bright blue gown, the trophy of more recent housewifery. To her, every form in the well-known garb seemed the form of a friend. The blue mountains in the distance, the scattered woods, the fields yellow with the harvest, the river sparkling in the sun, seemed, to the wanderer returning from the land of strangers, fairer than the gardens of Paradise.

Land of my affections !-when I forget thee, may my right hand forget her cunning!' Blessed be thou among nations! Long may thy wanderers return to thee rejoicing, and their hearts throb with honest pride when they own themselves thy children!

ELIZABETH HAMILTON.

ELIZABETH HAMILTON (1758-1816), an amiable and accomplished miscellaneous writer, was authoress of one excellent little novel, or moral tale, The Cottagers of Glenburnie, which has probably been as effective in promoting domestic land as Johnson's Journey to the Hebrides was improvement among the rural population of Scotin encouraging the planting of trees by the landed proprietors. În both cases there was some exaggeration of colouring, but the pictures were too provokingly true and sarcastic to be laughed away or denied. a national reproach, and the only way to wipe it They constituted off was by timely reformation. There is still much to accomplish, but a marked improvement in the dwellings and internal economy of Scottish farm-houses and villages may be dated from the publication of The Cottagers of Glenburnie. hingizabeth Hamilton was born in Belfast. Her erbs r was a merchant, of a Scottish family, andwill sa ̧ early, leaving a widow and three children. latter were educated and brought up by reeference in better circumstances, Elizabeth, the youngest, being sent to Mr Marshall, a farmer in Stirlingshire, married to her father's sister. Her brother obtained a cadetship in the East India Company's service, and an elder sister was retained in Ireland. A feeling of strong affection seems to have existed among these scattered members of the unfortunate family. Elizabeth found in Mr and Mrs Marshall all that could have been desired. She was adopted and educated with a care and tenderness that has seldom been equalled. No child,' she says, 'ever spent so happy a life, nor have I ever met with anything

Last Century.

the north side of the glen, owed as little to art as any The road, which winded along the foot of the hills, on much encumbered by loose stones, brought down from country road in the kingdom. It was very narrow, and the hills above by the winter torrents.

at all resembling our way of living, except the description given by Rousseau of Wolmar's farm Picture of Glenburnie and Scottish Rural Life in the and vintage.' A taste for literature soon appeared in Elizabeth Hamilton. Wallace was the first hero of her studies; but meeting with Ogil-struck with admiration at the uncommon wildness of They had not proceeded many paces until they were vie's translation of the Iliad, she idolised Achilles, the scene which now opened to their view. The rocks and dreamed of Hector. She had opportunities which seemed to guard the entrance of the glen were of visiting Edinburgh and Glasgow, after which abrupt and [savage, and approached so near each other, she carried on a learned correspondence with that one could suppose them to have been riven asunder Dr Moyse, a philosophical lecturer. She wrote to give a passage to the clear stream which flowed also many copies of verses-that ordinary outlet between them. As they advanced, the hills receded on for the warm feelings and romantic sensibilities of either side, making room for meadows and corn-fields, youth. Her first appearance in print was acci- through which the rapid burn pursued its way in many dental. Having accompanied a pleasure-party to a fantastic maze. the Highlands, she kept a journal for the gratification of her aunt, and the good woman shewing it to one of her neighbours, it was sent to a provincial magazine. Her retirement in Stirlingshire was, in 1773, gladdened by a visit from her brother, then about to sail for India. Mr Hamilton seems to have been an excellent and able young man; and his subsequent letters and conversations on Indian affairs stored the mind of his sister with the materials for her Hindoo Rajah, a work equally remarkable for good sense and sprightliness. Mr Hamilton was cut off by a premature death in 1792. Shortly after this period commenced the literary life of Elizabeth Hamilton, and her first work was that to which we have alluded, connected with the memory of her lamented brother, The Letters of a Hindoo Rajah, in two volumes, published in 1796. The success of the work stimulated her exertions. In 1800 she published The Modern Philosophers, in three volumes; and between that period and 1806, she gave to the world Letters on Education, Memoirs of Agrippina, and Letters to the Daughters of a Nobleman. In 1808 appeared her most popular, original, and useful work, The Cottagers of Glenburnie; and she subsequently published Popular Essays on the Human Mind, and Hints to the Directors of Public Schools. For many years Miss Hamilton had fixed her residence in Edinburgh. She was enfeebled by ill health, but her cheerfulness and activity of mind continued unabated, and her society was courted by the most intellectual and influential of her fellow-citizens. The benevolence and correct judgment which animated her writings pervaded her conduct. Having gone to Harrogate for the benefit of her health, Miss Hamilton died at that place on the 23d of July 1816, aged fifty-eight.

The Cottagers of Glenburnie is in reality a tale of cottage-life. The scene is laid in a poor scattered Scottish hamlet, and the heroine is a retired English governess, middle-aged and lame, with £30 a year! This person, Mrs Mason, after being long in a noble family, is reduced from a state of ease and luxury to one of comparative indigence; and having learned that her cousin, her only surviving relative, was married to one of the small farmers in Glenburnie, she agreed to fix her residence in her house as a lodger. On her way, she called at Gowan-brae, the house of the factor or land-steward on the estate, to whom she had previously been known; and we have a graphic account of the family of this gentleman, one of whose daughters figures conspicuously in the after-part of the tale. Mr Stewart, the factor, his youngest daughter, and boys, accompany Mrs Mason to Glenburnie.

Mrs Mason and Mary were so enchanted by the change of scenery which was incessantly unfolding to their view, that they made no complaints of the slowness of their progress, nor did they much regret being obliged to stop a few minutes at a time, where they found so much to amuse and to delight them. But Mr Stewart had no patience at meeting with obstructions which, with a little pains, could have been so easily obviated; and as he walked by the side of the car, expatiated upon the indolence of the people of the glen, who, though they had no other road to the market, could contentedly go it. How little trouble would it cost,' said he, on from year to year without making an effort to repair throw the smaller of these loose stones into these holes and ruts, and to remove the larger ones to the side, where they would form a fence between the road and the hill! There are enough of idle boys in the glen to effect all this, by working at it for one hour a week during the summer. But then their fathers must unite in setting them to work; and there is not one in the glen who would not sooner have his horses lamed, and his carts torn to pieces, than have his son employed in a work that would benefit his neighbours as much as himself.'

to

these small farmers; and immediately turning a sharp As he was speaking, they passed the door of one of corner, began to descend a steep, which appeared so unsafe that Mr Stewart made his boys alight, which they could do without inconvenience, and going to the head of the horse, took his guidance upon himself.

At the foot of this short precipice the road again made a sudden turn, and discovered to them a misfortune which threatened to put a stop to their proceeding any further for the present evening. It was no other than the overturn of a cart of hay, occasioned by the breaking down of the bridge, along which it had been passing. Happily for the poor horse that drew this illfated load, the harness by which he was attached to it was of so frail a nature as to make little resistance; so that he and his rider escaped unhurt from the fall, notwithstanding its being one of considerable depth.

At first, indeed, neither boy nor horse was seen; but as Mr Stewart advanced to examine whether, by removing the hay, which partly covered the bridge and partly hung suspended on the bushes, the road might still be passable, he heard a child's voice in the hollow exclaiming: Come on, ye muckle brute! ye had as weel come on! I'll gar ye! I'll gar ye! That's a gude beast Come awa! That's it! Ay, ye're a gude beast

now.

now!'

As the last words were uttered, a little fellow of about ten years of age was seen issuing from the hollow, and pulling after him, with all his might, a great longbacked clumsy animal of the horse species, though apparently of a very mulish temper.

You have met with a sad accident,' said Mr Stewart; 'how did all this happen?' 'You may see how it

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