added to the hospitality of a man of good fortune, and to the sort of stateliness which in those primitive days appertained to a doctor of divinity. The superintendence of that large household seems to have been at once her duty and her delight. It was a plenty and festivity almost resembling that of Camacho's wedding, guided by a wise and liberal economy, and a spirit of indefatigable industry. Oh the saltings, the picklings, the preservings, the a widow, and considerably older than her spouse, inasmuch as my grandpapa's passion for her commenced when he and her son, by a former husband, were school-fellows at Westminster. Mrs. Mosse never talked much of her, and, I suspect, did not much like her, though, when closely questioned, she would say that madam was a fine, portly lady, stately and personable, but rather too high. Her son made a sad mesalliance. He ran away with the sexton's daughter, an adven-cake-makings, the unnamed and unnameable ture which cost the sexton his post, and his mother her pride: she never looked up after it. That disgrace, and a cold caught by bumping on a pillion six miles through the rain, sent her to her grave. Of the second Mrs. R. little remains on record, except a gown and petticoat of primrose silk, curiously embossed and embroidered with gold and silver thread and silks of all colours, in an enormous running pattern of staring flowers, wonderfully unlike nature; also various recipes in the family receiptbook, which show a delicate Italian hand, and a bold originality of orthography. The chief event of her married life appears to have been the small-pox. She and two of her sisters, and Mrs. Mosse, were all inoculated together. The other servants, who had not gone through the disorder, were sent out of the house: Dr. R. himself took refuge with a neighbouring friend, and the patients were consigned to the care of two or three nurses, gossips by profession, hired from the next town. The best parlour, (in those days drawing-rooms were not,) was turned into a hospital; a quarantine, almost as strict as would be required in the plague, was kept up, and the preparation, the disease, and the recovery, consumed nearly two months. Mrs. Mosse always spoke of it as one of the pleasantest passages of her life. None of them suffered much; there was nothing to do, plenty of gossiping; a sense of self-importance, such as all prisoners must feel more or less; and for amusement they had Pamela, the Spectator, and Sir Charles Grandison. My grandfather had a very fine library; but Sir Charles was a female book, having been purchased by the joint contributions of six young ladies, and circulated amongst them once a year, sojourning two months with each fair partner, till death or marriage broke up the coterie. Is not that fame? Well, the second Mrs. R. died in the course of time, though not of the small-pox; and my grandfather, faithful to his wives, but not to their memories, married again as usual. His third adventure in that line was particularly happy; for my grandmother, beside being a celebrated beauty, appears to have been one of the best and kindest women that ever gladdened a country-home. She had a large household; for the tithes of one rich rectory were taken in kind, and the glebe cultivated; so that the cares of a farm-house were confectionary doings over which she presided! The very titles of her territories denoted the extent of her stores. The apple-room, the pear-bin, the cheese-loft, the minced-meat closet, were household words as familiar in Mossy's mouth as the dairy or the poultryyard. And my grandmamma was no hoarder for hoarding's sake, no maker of good things which were not to be eaten-as I have sometimes noted amongst your managing ladies; the object of her cares and stores was to contribute to the comfort of all who came within her influence. The large parsonage-house was generally overflowing with guests; and from the Oxford professor, who, with his wife, children, servants, and horses, passed his vacations there, to the poor pew-opener, who came with her little ones at tide-times, all felt the charm of her smiling graciousness, her sweet and cheerful spirit, her open hand and open heart. It is difficult to imagine a happier couple than my venerable grandfather and his charming wife. He retained to the last his studious habits, his love of literature, and his strong and warm family affections; while she cast the sunshine of her innocent gaiety over his respectable age, proud of his scholarship, and prouder still of his virtues. Both died long ago. But Mossy was an "honest chronicler," and never weary of her theme. Even the daily airings of the good doctor (who, in spite of his three wives, had a little of the peculiar preciseness in his studies and his exercise, which one is apt to attribute exclusively to that dreary person, an old bachelor) even those airings from twelve to two, four miles on the turnpike-road, and four miles back, with the fat horses and the grey-haired coachman, became vivid and characteristic in her description. The very carriage-dog, Sancho, was individualized; we felt that he belonged to the people and the time. Of these things we talked, mingled with many miscellaneous anecdotes of the same date;-how an electioneering duke saluted madam, and lost master's interest by the freedom;-how Sir Thomas S., the Lovelace of his day, came in his chariot and six, full twenty miles out of his way, to show himself to Miss Fanny in a Spanish masquerade dress, white satin slashed with blue, a blue cloak embroidered with silver, and point-lace that might have won any woman's heart, except that of his fair but obdurate mistress; and lastly, how Henry Fielding, when on a visit in the neighbourhood, had been accustomed to come and swing the children in the great barn; he had even swung Mossy herself, to her no small edification and delight-only think of being chucked backwards and forwards by the man who wrote about Parson Adams and 'Squire Allworthy! I used to envy her that felicity. Then from authors we got to books. She could not see in my time to read any thing but the folio Bible, and Common Prayer-Book, with which my dear mother had furnished her; but in her younger days she had seen or heard parts at least of a variety of books, and entered into them with a very keen though uncritical relish. Her chief favourites were, the Pilgrim's Progress, Don Quixote, Gulliver's Travels, Robinson Crusoe, and the equally apocryphal but still truer-seeming History of the Plague in London, by the same author, all of which she believed with the most earnest simplicity. I used frequently to read to her the passages she liked best; and she in her turn would repeat to me songs and ballads, good, bad, and indifferent-a strange medley, and strangely confounded in her memory; and so the time passed till ten o'clock. Those were pleasant evenings for her and for me. I have sometimes, on recollection, feared that her down-stair life was less happy. All that the orders of a mistress could effect for her comfort was done. But we were rich then unluckily; and there were skipjacks of footmen, and surly coachmen, and affected waiting-maids, and vixenish cooks, with tempers red-hot like their coals, to vex and tease our dear old woman. She must have suffered greatly between her ardent zeal for her master's interest, and that strange principle of concealing evil doings which servants call honour, and of which she was perpetually the slave and the victim. She had another infirmity, too, an impossibility of saying no, which, added to an unbounded generosity of temper, rendered her the easy dupe of the artful and designing. She would give any thing to the appearance of want, or the pretence of affection; in short, to importunity, however clothed. It was the only point of weakness in her character; and to watch that she did not throw away her own little comforts, to protect her from the effects of her over-liberality, was the chief care of her mistress. Three inferior servants were successively turned away for trespassing on Mossy's goodness, drinking her green tea, eating her diet-bread, begging her gowns. But the evil was incurable; she could dispense with any pleasure, except that of giving. So she lived on, beloved as the kind, the gentle, and the generous must be, il I left school, an event that gave her great satisfaction. We passed the succeeding spring in Lon don; and she took the opportunity to pay a long-promised visit to a half-nephew and niece, or rather a half-niece and her husband, who lived in Prince's-street, Barbican. Mrs. Beck (one naturally mentions her first as the person of most consequence) was the only real woman who ever came up to the magnificent abstract idea of the "fat woman of Brentford," the only being for whom Sir John Falstaff might have passed undetected. She was indeed a mountain of flesh, exuberant, rubicund, and bearded like a man; and she spoke, in a loud deep mannish voice, a broad Wiltshire dialect; but she was hearty and jovial withal, a thorough good fellow in petticoats. Mr. Beck, on the other hand, was a little insignificant, perking, sharp-featured man, with a JerrySneak expression in his pale whey-face, a thin squeaking voice, and a Cockney accent. He had been lucky enough to keep a little shop in an independent borough, at the time of a violently contested election; and having adroitly kept back his vote till votes rose to their full value (I hope this is no breach of privilege,) and then voted on the strongest side, he was at the time of which I speak comfortably settled in the excise as a tide-waiter, had a pretty neat house, brought up his family in good repute, wore a flaming red waistcoat, attended a dissenting meeting, and owed no man a shilling. These good people were very fond of their aunt, who had indeed, before they were so well off, shown them innumerable kindnesses. Perhaps there might be in the case a little gratitude for favours to come; for she had three or four hundred pounds to bequeath, partly her own savings, and partly a legacy from a distant relative; and they were her natural heirs. However that might be, they paid her all possible attention, and when we were about to return into the country, petitioned so vehemently for a few weeks more, that, yielding to the above-mentioned infirmity, she consented to stay. I had myself been the ambassadress to Barbican to fetch our dear old friend; and I remember, as if it were yesterday, how earnestly I entreated her to come with me, and how seriously I lectured Mrs. Beck for her selfishness, in wishing to keep her aunt in London during the heat of June. I even, after taking leave, sprang out of the carriage and ran up stairs to persuade her to come with me. Mossy's wishes were evidently on my side; but she had promised, and the performance of her promise was peremptorily_claimed: so with a heavy heart I left her. I never saw her again. There is surely such a thing as presentiment. A violent attack of gout in the stomach carried her off in a few hours. Hail to thy memory! for thou wast of the antique world, when "service sweat for duty, not for meed!" WALKS IN THE COUNTRY. NUTTING. if wood can entitle a country to be called Le Bocage, none can have a better right to the name. Even this pretty snug farm-house on the hill-side, with its front covered with the rich vine, which goes wreathing up to the very top of the clustered chimney, and its sloping orchard full of fruit-even this pretty quiet nest can hardly peep out of its leaves. Ah! they are gathering in the orchard harvest. Look at that young rogue in the old mossy weight of its golden rennets-see how he pelts his little sister beneath with apples as red and as round as her own cheeks, while she, with her outstretched frock, is trying to catch them, and laughing and offering to pelt again as often as one bobs against her; and look at that still younger imp, who, as grave as a judge, is creeping on hands and knees under the tree, picking up the apples as they fall so deedily, and depositing them so honestly in the great basket on the grass, already fixed so firmly and opened so widely, and filled almost to overflowing by the brown rough fruitage of the golden-rennet's next neighbour the russeting; and see that smallest urchin of all seated SEPTEMBER 26th.-One of those delicious autumnal days, when the air, the sky, and the earth, seem lulled into an universal calm, softer and milder even than May. We sallied forth for a walk, in a mood congenial to the weather and the season, avoiding, by mutual consent, the bright and sunny common, and the gay high road, and stealing through shady un-apple-tree-that great tree, bending with the frequented lanes, where we were not likely to meet any one, not even the pretty family procession, which in other years we used to contemplate with so much interest-the father, mother, and children, returning from the wheat field, the little ones laden with bristling closetied bunches of wheat-ears, their own gleanings, or a bottle and a basket which had contained their frugal dinner, whilst the mother would carry her babe hushing and lulling it, and the father and an elder child trudged after with the cradle, all seeming weary, and all happy. We shall not see such a procession as this to-day; for the harvest is nearly over, the fields are deserted, the silence may almost be felt. Except the wintry notes of the red-apart in infantine state on the turfy bank, with breast, nature herself is mute. But how beautiful, how gentle, how harmonious, how rich! The rain has preserved to the herbage all the freshness and verdure of spring, and the world of leaves has lost nothing of its midsummer brightness, and the harebell is on the banks and the woodbine in the hedges, and the low furze, which the lambs cropped in the spring, has burst again into its golden blossoms. All is beautiful that the eye can see; perhaps the more beautiful for being shut in with a forest-like closeness. We have no prospect in this labyrinth of lanes, cross-roads, mere cart-ways, leading to the innumerable little farms into which this part of the parish is divided. Uphill or down, these quiet woody lanes scarcely give us a peep at the world, except when, leaning over a gate, we look into one of the small enclosures, hemmed in with hedgerows, so closely set with growing timber, that the meady opening looks almost like a glade in a wood, or when some cottage, planted at a corner of one of the little greens formed by the meeting of these cross-ways, almost startles us by the unexpected sight of the dwellings of men in such a solitude. But that we have more of hill and dale, and that our cross-roads are excellent in their kind, this side of our parish would resemble the description given of La Vendée, in Madame Larochejacquelin's most interesting book. I am sure * An almost equally interesting account of that very Speculiar and interesting scenery, may be found in The Maid of La Vendée," an English novel, remarkable for its simplicity and truth of painting, written by Mrs. Le Noir, the daughter of Christopher Smart, and inheritrix of much of his talent. Her works deserve to be better known. Is not that toothsome piece of deformity a crumpling "Deedily,"-I am not quite sure that this word is good English; but it is genuine Hampshire, and is used by the most correct of female writers, Miss Austen. It means (and it is no small merit that it has no exact synonyme) any thing done with a profound and plodding attention, an action which engrosses all the powers of mind and body. 66 ing; for we are quite hidden by the high bank, and a spreading hawthorn-bush that overtops it, though between the lower branches and the grass we have found a convenient peep-hole. Willy!" The voice sounds to him like some fairy dream, and the black eyes are raised from the ground with sudden wonder, the long silky eye-lashes thrown back till they rest on the delicate brow, and a deeper blush is burning in those dark cheeks, and a smile is dimpling about those scarlet lips. But the voice is silent now, and the little quiet boy, after a moment's pause, is gone coolly to work again. He is indeed a most lovely child. I think some day or other he must marry Lizzy; I shall propose the match to their respective mammas. At present the parties are rather too young for a weddingthe intended bridegroom being, as I should judge, six, or thereabout, and the fair bride barely five,-but at least we might have a betrothment after the royal fashion,-there could be no harm in that. Miss Lizzy, I have no doubt, would be as demure and coquettish as if ten winters more had gone over her head, and poor Willy would open his innocent black eyes, and wonder what was going forward. They would be the very Oberon and Titania of the village, the fairy king and queen. Ah! here is the hedge along which the periwinkle wreathes and twines so profusely, with its evergreen leaves shining like the myrtle, and its starry blue flowers. It is seldom found wild in this part of England; but, when we do meet with it, it is so abundant and so welcome, the very robin-red-breast of flowers, a winter friend. Unless in those unfrequent frosts which destroy all vegetation, it blossoms from September to June, surviving the last lingering crane's-bill, forerunning the earliest primrose, hardier even than the mountain daisy,-peeping out from beneath the snow, looking at itself in the ice, smiling through the tempests of life, and yet welcoming and enjoying the sunbeams. Oh, to be like that flower! hanging the water. "Ah there are still nuts on that bough!" and in an instant my dear companion, active and eager and delighted as a boy, has hooked down with his walkingstick one of the lissome hazel stalks, and cleared it of its tawny clusters, and in another moment he has mounted the bank, and is in the midst of the nuttery, now transferring the spoil from the lower branches into that vast variety of pockets which gentlemen carry about them, now bending the tall tops into the lane, holding them down by main force, so that I might reach them and enjoy the pleasure of collecting some of the plunder myself. A very great pleasure he knew it would be. I doffed my shawl, tucked up my flounces, turned my straw bonnet into a basket, and began gathering and scrambling-for manage it how you may, nutting is scrambling work,— those boughs, however tightly you may grasp them by the young fragrant twigs and the bright green leaves, will recoil and burst away; but there is a pleasure even in that: so on we go, scrambling and gathering with all our might and all our glee. Oh what an enjoyment! All my life long I have had a passion for that sort of seeking which implies finding, (the secret, I believe, of the love of field-sports, which is in man's mind a natural impulse,)-therefore I love violeting,-therefore, when we had a fine garden I used to love to gather strawberries, and cut asparagus, and, above all, to collect the filberts from the shrubberies: but this hedge-row nutting beats that sport all to nothing. That was a make-believe thing compared with this; there was no surprise, no suspense, no unexpectedness-it was as inferior to this wildnutting, as the turning out of a bag fox is to unearthing the fellow in the eyes of a staunch foxhunter. Oh what an enjoyment this nut-gathering is!-They are in such abundance, that it seems as if there were not a boy in the parish, nor a young man nor a young woman, for a basket of nuts is the universal tribute of country gallantry; our pretty damsel Harriet has had at least half a dozen this season; but no The little spring that has been bubbling un- one has found out these. And they are so full der the hedge all along the hill side, begins, too, we lose half of them from over-ripeness; now that we have mounted the eminence and they drop from the socket at the slightest moare imperceptibly descending, to deviate into tion. If we lose, there is one who finds.— a capricious variety of clear deep pools and May is as fond of nuts as a squirrel, and cracks channels, so narrow and so choked with weeds, the shell and extracts the kernel with equal that a child might overstep them. The hedge dexterity. Her white glossy head is upturned has also changed its character. It is no longer now to watch them as they fall. See how her the close compact vegetable wall of hawthorn neck is thrown back like that of a swan, and and maple, and briar roses, intertwined with how beautifully her folded ears quiver with bramble and woodbine, and crowned with expectation, and how her quick eye follows large elms or thickly set saplings. No! the the rustling noise, and her light feet dance and pretty meadow which rises high above us, pat the ground, and leap up with eagerness, backed and almost surrounded by a tall cop- seeming almost sustained in the air, just as I pice, needs no defence on our side but its own have seen her when Brush is beating a hedgesteep bank, garnished with tufts of broom, row, and she knows from his questing that with pollard oaks wreathed with ivy, and here there is a hare afoot. See, she has caught and there with long patches of hazel over-that nut just before it touched the water; but the water would have been no defence,-she that she is Aunt Martha still. I have heard fishes them from the bottom, she delves after hints of an early engagement broken by the them amongst the matted grass-even my fickleness of man;-and there is about her an bonnet-how beggingly she looks at that! aversion to love in one particular direction— "Oh what a pleasure nutting is!-Is it not, the love matrimonial-and an overflowing of May? But the pockets are almost full, and so affection in all other channels, that it seems is the basket-bonnet, and that bright watch as if the natural course of the stream had been the sun says it is late; and after all it is wrong violently dammed up. She has many lovers to rob the poor boys-is it not, May ?" May-admirers I should say,-for there is, amidst shakes her graceful head denyingly, as if she her good-humoured gaiety, a coyness that forunderstood the question." And we must go bids their going farther; a modesty almost home now-must we not? But we will come amounting to shyness, that checks even the nutting again some time or other-shall we laughing girls, who sometimes accuse her of not, my May ?" stealing away their beaux. I do not think any man on earth could tempt her into wedlock; it would be a most unpardonable monopoly if any one should; an intolerable engrossing of a general blessing; a theft from the whole community. AUNT MARTHA. ONE of the pleasantest habitations I have ever known is an old white house, built at right angles, with the pointed roofs and clustered chimneys of Elizabeth's day, covered with roses, vines, and passion-flowers, and parted by a green sloping meadow from a straggling picturesque village street. In this charming abode resides a more charming family: a gentleman, "Polite as all his life in courts had been, And good as he the world had never seen;" two daughters full of sweetness and talent; and aunt Martha-the most delightful of old maids! She has another appellation I suppose, she must have one; but I scarcely know it: Aunt Martha is the name that belongs to her the name of affection. Such is the universal feeling which she inspires, that all her friends, all her acquaintances, (in this case the terms are almost synonymous,) speak of her like her own family:-she is every body's Aunt Martha-and a very charming Her usual home is the white house covered with roses; and her station in the family is rather doubtful. She is not the mistress, for her charming nieces are old enough to take and to adorn the head of the table; nor the house-keeper, though, as she is the only lady of the establishment who wears pockets, those ensigns of authority, the keys, will sometimes be found, with other strays, in that goodly receptacle: nor a guest; her spirit is too active for that lazy post; her real vocation there, and every where, seems to be comforting, cheering, welcoming, and spoiling every thing that comes in her way; and, above all, nursing and taking care. Of all kind employments, these are her favourites. Oh the shawlings, the cloakings, the cloggings! the cautions against cold, or heat, or rain, or sun! the remedies for diseases not arrived! colds uncaught! incipient tooth-aches! rheumatisms to come! She loves nursing so well, that we used to accuse her of inventing maladies for other people, that she might have the pleasure of curing them; and when they really come as come they will sometimes in spite of Aunt First of all, she is, as all women should be Martha-what a nurse she is! It is worth if they can, remarkably handsome. She may while to be a little sick to be so attended. All be-it is a delicate matter to speak of a lady's the cousins, and cousins' cousins of her conage!-she must be five-and-forty; but few nection, as regularly send for her on the occabeauties of twenty could stand a comparison sion of a lying-in, as for the midwife. I supwith her loveliness. It is such a fulness of pose she has undergone the ceremony of bloom, so luxuriant, so satiating; just tall dandling the baby, sitting up with the new enough to carry off the plumpness which at mamma, and dispensing the caudle, twenty forty-five is so becoming; a brilliant com- times at least. She is equally important at plexion; curled pouting lips! long, clear, weddings or funerals. Her humanity is inbright grey eyes-the colour for expression, exhaustible. She has an intense feeling of that which unites the quickness of the black fellowship with her kind, and grieves or rewith the softness of the blue; a Roman re-joices in the sufferings or happiness of others gularity of feature; and a profusion of rich with a reality as genuine as it is rare. brown hair. Such is Aunt Martha. Add to Her accomplishments are exactly of this this a very gentle and pleasant speech, always sympathetic order; all calculated to adminiskind, and generally lively; the sweetest tem- ter much to the pleasure of her companions, per; the easiest manners; a singular rectitude nothing to her own importance or vanity. She and singleness of mind; a perfect open-heart-leaves to the sirens, her nieces, the higher enedness; and a total unconsciousness of all chantments of the piano, the harp, and the these charms; and you will wonder a little guitar, and that noblest of instruments, the Aunt Martha she is. |