main street was lined with booths, abounding in toys, gleaming crockery,
gay ribbons, and gilded ginger bread. Farther on, where the street
widened into the ample village-green, rose the more pretending fabrics
which lodged the attractive forms of the Mermaid, the Norfolk Giant; the
Pig-faced Lady, the Spotted Boy, and the Calf with Two Heads; while high
over even these edifices, and occupying the most conspicuous vantage-
ground, a lofty stage promised to rural playgoers the "Grand Melodramatic
Performance of The Remorseless Baron and the Bandit's Child." Music,
lively if artless, resounded on every side,--drums, fifes, penny-
whistles, cat-calls, and a hand-organ played by a dark foreigner, from
the height of whose shoulder a cynical but observant monkey eyed the
hubbub and cracked his nuts.

It was now sunset,--the throng at the fullest,--an animated, joyous
scene. The, day had been sultry; no clouds were to be seen, except low
on the western horizon, where they stretched, in lengthened ridges of
gold and purple, like the border-land between earth and sky. The tall
elms on the green were still, save, near the great stage, one or two,
upon which had climbed young urchins, whose laughing faces peered forth,
here and there, from the foliage trembling under their restless
movements.

Amidst the crowd, as it streamed saunteringly along, were two spectators;
strangers to the place, as was notably proved by the attention they
excited, and the broad jokes their dress and appearance provoked from the
rustic wits,--jokes which they took with amused good-humour, and
sometimes retaliated with a zest which had already made them very popular
personages. Indeed, there was that about them which propitiated liking.
They were young; and the freshness of enjoyment was so visible in their
faces, that it begot a sympathy, and wherever they went, other faces