when the duties of the day were over, and she as a volunteer, and had fallen undistinguished sat reading in the porch, by the side of Mrs. in his first battle. The news of his death was Allen, or walked with her in the meadows on fatal to his indulgent mother; and when she a Sunday evening after church. Jane was too died, Mrs. Allen blessed the Providence certainly contented and happy; and yet every which, by throwing in her way a recommenone that saw her, thought of her with that dation to Lady Lacy's school, had enabled her kind of interest which is akin to pity. There to support the dear object of her mistress's was a pale, fragile grace about her, such as love and prayers. "Had Miss Mowbray we sometimes see in a rose which has blown no connections?" was the natural question. in the shade; or rather, to change the simile," Yes; one very near, an aunt, the sister of the drooping and delicate look of a tender her father, richly married in India. But Sir plant removed from a hot-house to the open William was a proud and a stern man, upright air. We could not help feeling sure (notwith- in his own conduct, and implacable to error. standing our mistake with regard to Mrs. Lady Ely was a sweet, gentle creature, and¦ Allen) that this was indeed a transplanted doubtless would be glad to extend a mother's flower; and that the village school, however protection to the orphan; but Sir Williamexcellently her habits had become inured to Oh! he was so unrelenting! He had abjured her situation, was not her proper atmosphere. Mr. Mowbray, and all connected with him. Several circumstances corroborated our sus- She had written to inform them where the picions. My lively young friend Sophia Grey, dear child was, but had no expectation of any standing with me one day at the gate of the answer from India." school-house, where I had been talking with Mrs. Allen, remarked to me, in French, the sly, demure vanity, with which Susan Wheeler, whose beauty had attracted her attention, was observing and returning her glances. The playful manner in which Sophia described Susan's "regard furtif," made me smile; and looking accidentally at Jane, I saw that she was smiling too, clearly comprehending, and enjoying the full force of the pleasantry. She must understand French; and when questioned, she confessed she did, and thankfully accepted the loan of books in that language. Another time, being sent on a message to the vicarage, and left for some minutes alone in the parlour, with a piano standing open in the room, she could not resist the temptation of touching the keys, and was discovered playing an air of Mozart, with great taste and execution. At this detection she blushed, as if caught in a crime, and hurried away in tears and without her message. It was clear that she had once learnt music. But the surest proof that Jane's original station had been higher than that which she now filled, was the mixture of respect and fondness with which Mrs. Allen treated her, and the deep regret she sometimes testified at seeing her employed in any menial office.

At last, elicited by some warm praise of the charming child, our good schoolmistress disclosed her story. Jane Mowbray was the grand-daughter of the lady in whose service Mrs. Allen had passed her life. Her father had been a man of high family and splendid fortune; had married beneath himself, as it was called, a friendless orphan, with no portion but beauty and virtue; and, on her death, which followed shortly on the birth of her daughter, had plunged into every kind of vice and extravagance. What need to tell a tale of sin and suffering? Mr. Mowbray had ruined himself, had ruined all belonging to him, and finally had joined our armies abroad

Time verified this prediction. The only tidings from India, at all interesting to Jane Mowbray, were contained in the paragraph of a newspaper which announced lady Ely's death, and put an end to all hopes of protec tion in that quarter. Years passed on, and found her still with Mrs. Allen at Lady Lacy's Green, more and more beloved and respected from day to day. She had now attained almost to womanhood. Strangers, I believe, called her plain; we, who knew her, thought her pretty. Her figure was tall and straight as a cypress, pliant and flexible as a willow, full of gentle grace, whether in repose or in motion. She had a profusion of light brown hair, a pale complexion, dark grey eyes, a smile of which the character was rather sweet than gay, and such a countenance! no one could look at her without wishing her well, or without being sure that she deserved all good wishes. Her manners were modest and elegant, and she had much of the self-taught knowledge, which is, of all knowledge, the surest and the best, because acquired with most difficulty, and fixed in the memory, by the repetition of effort. Every one had assisted her to the extent of his power, and of her willingness to accept assistance; for both she and Mrs. Allen had a pride-call it independence-which rendered it impossible, even to the friends who were most honoured by their good opinion, to be as useful to them as they could have wished. To give Miss Mowbray time for improvement had, however, proved a powerful emollient to the pride of our dear schoolmistress; and that time had been so well employed, that her acquirements were considerable; whilst in mind and character she was truly admirable; mild, grateful, and affectionate, and imbued with a deep religious feeling, which influenced every action and pervaded every thought. So gifted, she was deemed by her constant friends, the vicar and his lady, perfectly competent to the

care and education of children; it was agreed that she should enter a neighbouring family, as a successor to their then governess, early in the ensuing spring; and she, although sad at the prospect of leaving her aged protectress, acquiesced in their decision.

She lives there still, its ornament and its pride; and every year Jane Mowbray comes for a long visit, and makes a holiday in the school and in the whole place. Jane Mowbray, did I say? No! not Jane Mowbray now. She has changed that dear name for the only name that could be dearer :-she is married - married to the eldest son of Mr. Lacy, the lineal representative of Dame Eleanor Lacy, the honoured foundress of the school. It was in a voice tremulous more from feeling than from age, that Mrs. Allen welcomed the young heir, when he brought his fair bride to Aberleigh; and it was with a yet stronger and deeper emotion that the bridegroom, with his own Jane in his hand, visited the asylum which she and her venerable guardian owed to the benevolence and the piety of his ancestress, whose good deeds had thus showered down blessings on her remote posterity.

FANNY'S FAIRINGS.

One fine Sunday in the October preceding this dreaded separation, as Miss Mowbray, with Mrs. Allen leaning on her arm, was slowly following the little train of Lady Lacy's scholars from church, an elderly gentleman, sickly-looking and emaciated, accosted a pretty young woman, who was loitering with some other girls at the church-yard gate, and asked her several questions respecting the school and its mistress. Susan Wheeler (for it happened to be our old acquaintance) was delighted to be singled out by so grand a gentleman, and being a kind-hearted creature in the main, spoke of the school-house and its inhabitants exactly as they deserved. "Mrs. Allen," she said, "was the best woman in the world-the very best, except just Miss Mowbray, who was better still,-only too particular about summing, which you know, sir,” added Susan," people can't learn if they can't. She is going to be a governess in the spring," continued the loquacious damsel; "and it's A HAPPY boy was Thomas Stokes, the blackto be hoped the little ladies will take kindly smith's son, of Upton Lea, last May morning: to their tables, or it will be a sad grievance to he was to go to B- fair, with his eldest Miss Jane."-"A governess! Where can I brother William, and his cousin Fanny; and make inquiries concerning Miss Mowbray ?" he never closed his eyes all night for thinking "At the vicarage, sir," answered Susan, of the pleasure he should enjoy on the mordropping her little curtsy, and turning away, row. Thomas, for shortness called "Tom," well pleased with the gentleman's condescen- was a lively, merry boy of nine years old, sion, and with half-a-crown which he had rising ten, as the horse-dealers say, and had given her in return for her intelligence. The never been at a fair in his life; so that his stranger, meanwhile, walked straight to the sleeplessness as well as the frequent solilovicarage; and in less than half an hour the quies of triumphant ho! ho! (his usual exvicar repaired with him to Lady Lacy's Green. clamation when highly pleased,) and the perThis stranger, so drooping, so sickly, so petual course of broad smiles in which his emaciated, was the proud Indian uncle, the delight had been vented for a week before, stern Sir William Ely! Sickness and death were nothing remarkable. His companions had been busy with him and his. He had were as wakeful and happy as himself. Now lost his health, his wife, and his children; that might be accounted for in his cousin's and, softened by affliction, was returned to case, since it was also her first fair; for FanEngland a new man, anxious to forgive and to ny, a pretty dark-eyed lass of eighteen, was a be forgiven, and, above all, desirous to repair Londoner, and, till she arrived that winter on his neglect and injustice towards the only re- a visit to her aunt, had never been out of the maining relative of the wife whom he had so sound of bow-bell; but why William, a young fondly loved and so tenderly lamented. In blacksmith of one-and-twenty, to whom fairs this frame of mind, such a niece as Jane were almost as familiar as horse-shoes, why Mowbray was welcomed with no common he should lose his sleep on the occasion is joy. His delight in her, and his gratitude less easy to discover-perhaps from sympatowards her protectress, were unbounded. He thy. Through Tom's impatience the party wished them both to accompany him home, were early astir; indeed, he had roused the and reside with him constantly. Jane promised to do so; but Mrs. Allen, with her usual admirable feeling of propriety, clung to the spot which had been to her a "city of refuge," and refused to leave it in spite of all the entreaties of uncle and of niece. It was a happy decision for Aberleigh; for what could Aberleigh have done without its good schoolmistress?

whole house long before daybreak; and betimes in the forenoon they set forth on their progress;-Tom in a state of spirits that caused him to say, Ho! ho! every minute, and much endangered the new hat that he was tossing in the air; William and Fanny, with a more concentrated and far quieter joy. One should not see a finer young couple: he, decked in his Sunday attire, tall, sturdy, and mus

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of all kinds and countries-English, Irish, Welsh, and Scotch-all bound for the fair.Here an Italian boy with his tray of images; there a Savoyard with her hurdy-gurdy; and, lastly, struggling through the midst of the throng, that painful minister of pleasure, an itinerant showman, with his box of puppets and his tawdry wife, pushing and toiling, and straining every nerve for fear of being too late. No end to the people! no end to the din! The turnpike-man opened his gate and shut his ears in despairing resignation. Never was known so full a May-fair.

cular, with a fine open countenance, and an air of rustic gallantry that became him well; she, pretty and modest, with a look of gentility about her plain dark gown and cottage bonnet, and the little straw basket that she carried in her hand, which even more than her ignorance of tree and bird, and leaf and flower, proclaimed her town breeding;-although that ignorance was such, that Tom declared that on her first arrival at Upton Lea, she did not know an oak from an elm, or a sparrow from a blackbird. Tom himself had yet to learn poor Fanny's excuses, how much oaks and And amongst the thousands assembled in elms resemble each other in the London air, and how very closely in colour, though not in the market-place at B- it would have been size, a city sparrow approaches to a blackbird. difficult to find a happier group than our young Their way led through pleasant footpaths; cousins. Tom, to be sure, had been conscious every bank covered with cowslips and blue- of a little neglect on the part of his compaThe lectures on ornithology, with bells, and overhung with the budding haw-nions. thorn, and the tasselled hazel; now between which, chemin faisant, he had thought fit to orchards, whose trees, one flush of blossom, favour Fanny (children do dearly love to teach rose from amidst beds of daffodils, with their grown people, and all country boys are learned dark weaving spear-like leaves and golden in birds,) had been rather thrown away on flowers; now along fields, newly sown with that fair damsel. William and she had walked barley, where the doves and wood-pigeons, arm-in-arm; and when he tried to join them pretty innocent thieves, were casting a glanc- on one side, he found himself cast off,—and ing shadow on the ground as they flew from when on the other, let go. Poor Tom was, furrow to furrow, picking up the freshly plant- evidently, de-trop in the party. However, he ed grain; and now between close lanes peo- bore the affront like a philosopher, and soon pled with nightingales; until at last they forgot his grievances in the solid luxuries of emerged into the gay high road, where their tarts and gingerbread; in the pleasant business little party fell into the flood of people pour of purchasing and receiving petty presents; ing on to the fair, much after the manner in in the chatter, the bustle, and the merriment which a tributary brooklet is lost in the wa- of the fair. Amidst all his delight, however, he could not but feel a little curiosity, when ters of some mighty stream. William having lured him to a stall, and fixed him there in the interesting occupation of selecting a cricket-ball, persuaded Fanny to go under his escort to make some private purchases at the neighbouring shops. Tom's attention to his own important bargain was sadly distracted by watching his companions as they proceeded from the linen-drapers to the jewellers, and from the jewellers to the pastry-cooks; looking, the whilst, the one proud and happy, the other shy and ashamed. Tom could not tell what to make of it, and chose, in his perplexity, the very worst ball that was offered to him; but as he had seen their several parcels snugly deposited in the straw basket, he summoned courage to ask, point blank, what it contained; at which question, Fanny blushed, and William laughed; Fanny's fairings." and on a repetition of the inquiry answered, with an arch smile Now as Fanny had before purchased toys, and cakes, and such like trifles, for the whole family, this reply and the air with which it. was delivered, served rather to stimulate than to repress the vague suspicions that were floating in the boy's brain. A crowd, however, is no place for impertinent curiosity. Loneliness and ennui are necessary to the growth of that weed. If there had been a fair in Bluebeard's castle, his wives would have

A mingled stream in good sooth it was, a most motley procession! Country folks in all varieties, from the pink-ribboned maiden, the belle of her parish, tripping along so merrily, to the sober and demure village matron, who walked beside her with a slow lagging pace, as if tired already; from the gay Lothario of the hamlet, with his clean smockfrock, and his hat on one side, who strutted along, ogling the lass in the pink ribbons, to the " grave and reverend seignor," the patriarch of the peasantry, with his straight white hair, and his well-preserved weddingsuit, who hobbled stoopingly on, charged with two great-grandchildren—a sprightly girl of six lugging him forward, a lumpish boy of Children were three dragging him back. there of all conditions, from "mamma's darlings," in the coronet carriage-the little lords and ladies, to whom a fair was, as yet, only a "word of power," down to the brown gipsy urchins strapped on their mother's back, to whom it was a familiar sight-no end to the children! no end to the grown people! no end to the vehicles! Carts crammed as full as they could be stowed, gigs with one, two, three, and four inside passengers; wagons laden with men instead of corn; droves of pigs; flocks of sheep; herds of cattle; strings of horses; with their several drovers and drivers

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kept their heads on their shoulders; the blue chamber and the diamond key would have tempted in vain. So Tom betook himself to the enjoyment of the scene before him, applying himself the more earnestly to the business of pleasure, as they were to return to Upton Lea at four o'clock.

Four o'clock arrived, and found our hero, Thomas Stokes, still untired of stuffing and staring. He had eaten more cakes, oranges, and gingerbread, than the gentlest reader would deem credible; and he had seen well nigh all the sights of the fair;-the tall man, and the short woman, and the calf with two heads; had attended the in-door horsemanship and the out-door play; the dancing dogs and two raree-shows; and lastly, had visited and admired the wonders of the menagerie, scraped acquaintance with a whole legion of parrots and monkeys, poked up a boa-constrictor, patted a lioness, and had the honour of presenting his blunderbuss to the elephant, although he was not much inclined to boast of this exploit, having been so frightened at his own temerity, as to run away out of the booth before the sagacious but deliberate quadruped

had found time to fire.

THE CHALK-PIT. ONE of the most admirable persons whom I have ever known, is my friend Mrs. Mansfield, the wife of the good vicar of Aberleigh. Her daughters are just what might be expected from girls trained under such a mother. Of Clary, the youngest, I have spoken elsewhere. Ellen, the elder sister, is as delightful a piece of sunshine and gaiety as ever gladdened a country home. One never thinks whether she is pretty, there is such a play of feature, such a light in her dark eye, such an alternation of blush and smile on her animated countenance; for Ellen has her mother's trick of blushing, although her "eloquent blood" speaks through the medium of a richer and browner skin. One forgets to make up one's mind as to her prettiness; but it is quite certain that she is charming.

She has, in the very highest degree, those invaluable every-day spirits which require no artificial stimuli, no public amusements, no company, no flattery, no praise. Her sprightliness is altogether domestic. Her own dear family, and a few dear friends, are all the listeners she ever thinks of. No one doubts but Ellen might be a wit, if she would she is saved from that dangerous distinction as much by natural modesty as by a kind and constant consideration for the feelings of others. I have often seen a repartee flashing and laughing in her bright eyes, but seldom, very seldom, heard it escape her lips; never unless quite equally matched and challenged to such a bout of "bated foils" by some admirer of her playful conversation. They who have themselves that splendid but delusive talent, can best estimate the merit of such forbearance. Governed as it is in her, it makes the delight of the house, and supplies perpetual amusement to herself and to all about her.

Not a whit tired was Tom. He could have wished the fair to last a week. Nevertheless, he obeyed his brother's summons; and the little party set out on their return, the two elder ones again linked arm-in-arm, and apparently forgetting that the world contained any human being except their own two selves. Poor Tom trudged after, beginning to feel, in the absence of other excitement, a severe relapse of his undefined curiosity, respecting Fanny's fairings. On tripped William and Fanny, and after trudged Tom, until a string of unruly horses passing rapidly by, threw the whole group into confusion: no one was hurt; but the pretty Londoner was so much alarmed as to afford her companion ample employment in placing her on a bank, sooth- Another of her delightful and delighting ing her fears, and railing at the misconduct of amusements, is her remarkable skill in drawthe horse-people. As the cavalcade disap- ing flowers. I have never seen any portraits peared, the fair damsel recovered her spirits, so exactly resembling the originals, as her carand began to inquire for her basket, which nations and geraniums. If they could see she had dropped in her terror, and for Tom, themselves in her paintings, they might think who was also missing. They were not far to that it was their own pretty selves in their seek. Perched in the opposite hedge sat looking-glass, the water. One reason for this master Tom, in the very act of satisfying his wonderful verisimilitude is, that our fair artist curiosity by examining her basket, smiling never flatters the flowers that sit to her; never and ho! ho!-ing with all his might. Parcel puts leaves that ought to be there, but are not after parcel did he extract and unfold :-first there, never makes them hold up their heads a roll of white satin ribbon -"ho! ho!"- unreasonably, or places them in an attitude, or then a pair of white cambric gloves-"ho! forces them into a group. Just as they are, ho!" again; then a rich-looking, dark-co- she sets them down; and if she does make loured, small plum-cake, nicely frosted with any slight deviation from her models, she is white sugar, ho! ho! Miss Fanny !"-last so well acquainted with their persons and of all a plain gold ring wrapped in three habits, that all is in keeping; you feel that so papers, silver, white, and brown,-"ho, ho! the plant might have looked. By the way, once more shouted the boy, twirling the wed- do not know any accomplishment that I would ding-ring on his own red finger, the fourth of more earnestly recommend to my young friends the left hand," so these are Fanny's fair- than this of flower-painting. It is a most quiet, ings! Ho! ho!-ho! ho!" unpretending, womanly employment; a great

I

amusement within doors, and a constant pleasure without. The enjoyment of a country I walk is much enhanced when the checkered fritillary or the tinted wood anemone are to be sought, and found, and gathered, and made our own; and the dear domestic spots haunted by

"Retired leisure,

Who in trim gardens takes his pleasure,"

are doubly gardens when the dahlias and chinaasters, after flourishing there for their little day, are to re-blossom on paper. Then it supplies such pretty keepsakes, the uncostly remembrances which are so pleasant to give and to take; and, above all, it fosters and sharpens the habit of observation and the love of truth. How much of what is excellent in art, in literature, in conversation, and in conduct, is comprised in that little word!

Ellen had great delight in comparing our Sylvan Flora with the minute and fairy blossoms of the South Downs, where she had passed the greater part of her life. She could not but admit the superior luxuriance and variety of our woodland plants, and yet she had a good deal to say in favour of the delicate, flowery carpet, which clothes the green hills of Sussex; and in fact was on that point of honour a little jealous-a little, a very little, the least in the world, touchy. She loved her former abode, the abode of childhood, with enthusiasm; the downs; the sea, whose sound as she said seemed to follow her to her inland home, to dwell within her as it does in the folds of the sea-shell; and, above all, she loved her old neighbours, high and low. I do not know whether Mrs. Mansfield or her daughters returned oftenest to the "simple annals of the Sussex poor." It was a subject of which they never wearied; and we to whom they came, liked them the more for their clinging and lingering affection for those whom they had left. We received it as a pledge of what they would feel for us when we became better acquainted,-a pledge which has been amply redeemed. I flatter myself that Aberleigh now almost rivals their dear old parish; only that Clara, who has been here three years, and is now eighteen, says, very gravely, that "people as they grow old, cannot be expected to form the very strong local attachments which they did when they were young." I wonder how old Clara will think herself when she comes to be eight-and-twenty?

Between Ellen's stories and her mother's there is usually a characteristic difference; those of the one being merry, those of the other grave. One occurrence, however, was equally impressed on the mind of either. I shall try to tell it as shortly and simply as it was told to me; but it will want the charm of Mrs. Mansfield's touching voice, and of Ellen's glistening eyes.

Toward the bottom of one of the green hills of the parish of Lanton, was a large deserted

chalk-pit; a solemn and ghastly-looking place, blackened in one part by an old lime-kiln, whose ruinous fragments still remained, and in others mossy and weather-stained, and tinted with every variety of colour-green, yellow, and brown. The excavation extended far within the sides of the hill, and the edges were fringed by briar and bramble and ivy, contrasting strongly with the smooth, level verdure of the turf above, whilst plants of a ranker growth, nettles, docks, and fumatory, sprang up beneath, adding to the wildness and desolation of the scene. The road that led by the pit was little frequented. The place had an evil name; none cared to pass it even in the glare of the noon-day sun; and the villagers would rather go a mile about than catch a glimpse of it when the pale moonlight brought into full relief those cavernous white walls, and the dark briars and ivy waved fitfully in the night wind. It was a vague and shuddering feeling. None knew why he feared, or what; but the awe and the avoidance were general, and the owls and the bats remained in undisturbed possession of Lanton chalk-pit.

One October day, the lively work of ploughing, and wheat-sowing, and harrowing, was going on all at once in a great field just beyond the dreaded spot: a pretty and an interesting scene, especially on sloping ground, and under a gleaming sun throwing an ever-shifting play of light and shadow over the landscape. Towards noon, however, the clouds began to gather, and one of the tremendous pelting showers, peculiar to the coast, came suddenly on. Seedsmen, ploughmen, and carters, hastened home with their team, leaving the boys to follow; and they, five in number, set out at their fullest speed. The storm increased apace; and it was evident that their thin jackets and old smock-frocks would be drenched through and through long before they could reach Lanton Great Farm. In this dilemma, James Goddard, a stout lad of fifteen, the biggest and boldest of the party, proposed to take shelter in the chalk-pit. Boys are naturally thoughtless and fearless; the real inconvenience was more than enough to counterbalance the imaginary danger, and they all willingly adopted the plan, except one timid child, eight years old, who shrunk and hung back.

His father,

Harry Lee was a widow's son. a fisherman, had perished at sea, a few months after the birth of this only child; and his mother, a fond and delicate woman, had reared him delicately and fondly, beyond her apparent means. Night and day had she laboured for her poor Harry; and nothing but a long illness and the known kindness of the farmer in whose service he was placed, had induced her to part with him at so early an age.

Harry was, indeed, a sweet and gracious boy, noticed by every stranger for his gentleness and beauty. He had a fair, blooming,