of both and never allows either of us to spend sixpence without her
knowledge. . . . You should see the manner in which she makes Ben
reckon with her, and her contempt for all women who do not manage
their husbands.'

Another delightful quotation is from one of Charles Kingsley's
letters to Mr. Payn. It brings the past before us from another
point of view.

'I can never forget the little figure rolled up in two chairs in the
little Swallowfield room, packed round with books up to the ceiling-
-the little figure with clothes on of no recognised or recognisable
pattern; and somewhere, out of the upper end of the heap, gleaming
under a great deep globular brow, two such eyes as I never perhaps
saw in any other Englishwoman--though I believe she must have had
French blood in her veins to breed such eyes and such a tongue, the
beautiful speech which came out of that ugly (it was that) face, and
the glitter and depth too of the eyes, like live coals--perfectly
honest the while. . . .' One would like to go on quoting and
copying, but here my preface must cease, for it is but a preface
after all, one of those many prefaces written out of the past and
when everything is over.



COUNTRY PICTURES.

Of all situations for a constant residence, that which appears to me
most delightful is a little village far in the country; a small
neighbourhood, not of fine mansions finely peopled, but of cottages