with his own residence, diverts himself with altering and
re-altering, improving and re-improving, doing and undoing here. It
is a perfect Penelope's web. Carpenters and bricklayers have been
at work for these eighteen months, and yet I sometimes stand and
wonder whether anything has really been done. One exploit in last
June was, however, by no means equivocal. Our good neighbour
fancied that the limes shaded the rooms, and made them dark (there
was not a creature in the house but the workmen), so he had all the
leaves stripped from every tree. There they stood, poor miserable
skeletons, as bare as Christmas under the glowing midsummer sun.
Nature revenged herself, in her own sweet and gracious manner; fresh
leaves sprang out, and at nearly Christmas the foliage was as
brilliant as when the outrage was committed.

Next door lives a carpenter, 'famed ten miles round, and worthy all
his fame,'--few cabinet-makers surpass him, with his excellent wife,
and their little daughter Lizzy, the plaything and queen of the
village, a child three years old according to the register, but six
in size and strength and intellect, in power and in self-will. She
manages everybody in the place, her schoolmistress included; turns
the wheeler's children out of their own little cart, and makes them
draw her; seduces cakes and lollypops from the very shop window;
makes the lazy carry her, the silent talk to her, the grave romp
with her; does anything she pleases; is absolutely irresistible.
Her chief attraction lies in her exceeding power of loving, and her
firm reliance on the love and indulgence of others. How impossible
it would be to disappoint the dear little girl when she runs to meet
you, slides her pretty hand into yours, looks up gladly in your
face, and says 'Come!' You must go: you cannot help it. Another
part of her charm is her singular beauty. Together with a good deal