ALLERTON is one of the small, sleepy little towns which drag on an unprosperous existence in the rural districts of southern England. It can boast of a weekly market, and contains a decadent grammar school and a County Bank, and in the High Street are substantial houses with stone facings, which recall the days of its earlier grandeur, when the Hunt Ball was held at the 'Red Lion,' and was an era in the lives of the county gentry, and when two mail-coaches changed horses daily at the entrance of the inn-yard, which is now only tenanted by two shabby flies and a four

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