it out and out; and he has only one pretty daughter, a light,
delicate, fair-haired girl of fourteen, the champion, protectress,
and playfellow of every brat under three years old, whom she jumps,
dances, dandles, and feeds all day long. A very attractive person
is that child-loving girl. I have never seen any one in her station
who possessed so thoroughly that undefinable charm, the lady-look.
See her on a Sunday in her simplicity and her white frock, and she
might pass for an earl's daughter. She likes flowers too, and has a
profusion of white stocks under her window, as pure and delicate as
herself.

The first house on the opposite side of the way is the blacksmith's;
a gloomy dwelling, where the sun never seems to shine; dark and
smoky within and without, like a forge. The blacksmith is a high
officer in our little state, nothing less than a constable; but,
alas! alas! when tumults arise, and the constable is called for, he
will commonly be found in the thickest of the fray. Lucky would it
be for his wife and her eight children if there were no public-house
in the land: an inveterate inclination to enter those bewitching
doors is Mr. Constable's only fault.

Next to this official dwelling is a spruce brick tenement, red,
high, and narrow, boasting, one above another, three sash-windows,
the only sash-windows in the village, with a clematis on one side
and a rose on the other, tall and narrow like itself. That slender
mansion has a fine, genteel look. The little parlour seems made for
Hogarth's old maid and her stunted footboy; for tea and card
parties,--it would just hold one table; for the rustle of faded
silks, and the splendour of old china; for the delight of four by
honours, and a little snug, quiet scandal between the deals; for