though one day much resembled another, to live all her life there,
devoted to God and her garden. Visitors always praised her garden.

Axcester lies on the western side and mostly at the foot of a low hill
set accurately in the centre of a ring of hills slightly higher-the
raised bottom of a saucer would be no bad simile. The old Roman road
cuts straight across this rise, descends between the shops of the High
Street, passes the church, crosses the Axe by a narrow bridge, and
climbing again passes the iron gates of Bayfield House, a mile above
the river. So straight is it that Dorothea could keep her brothers in
view from the gates until they dismounted before their office door,
losing sight of them for a minute or two only among the elms by the
bridge. Her boudoir window commanded the same prospect; and every day
as the London coach topped the hill, her maid Polly would run with
news of it. The two would be watching, often before the guard's horn
awoke the street and fetched the ostlers out in a hurry from the "Dogs
Inn" stables with their relay of four horses. Miss Dorothea possessed
a telescope, too; and if the coach were dressed with laurels and flags
announcing a victory, mistress and maid would run to the gates and wave
their handkerchiefs as it passed.

Sometimes, too, Polly would announce a post-chaise, and the telescope
decide whether the postboys wore the blue or the buff. Nor were these
their only causes of excitement; for the great Bayfield elm, a rood
below the gates and in full view of them, marked the westward boundary
of the French prisoners on parole. Some of these were quite regular in
their walks for instance, Rear-Admiral de Wailly-Duchemin and General
Rochambeau, who came at three o'clock or thereabouts on Wednesdays and
Saturdays, summer and winter. At six paces on the far side of the elm--
such was their punctilio--they halted, took snuff, linked arms again