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    ft been otherwise , she might , with her organizing mind , have assisted in counselling the counsellors of an empire , and have helped to promote the well being of a whole nation , as easily as she did that of a village . You smile , and you will perhaps smile yet more at the simplicity of her

    history , bu ) listen patiently ; I have hopes of you yet as a convert , for you look resolutely determined not to change your opinion , —a sure sign that there is a little prejudice mixed up with your supposed good reasons , and prejudice is such a sorry hack , when matched by the side of truth , that it is sure to break down in the end .

    You remember the avenue behind the old house , and the narrow lane that separated it from the wood beyond . A few paces along that lane , to the right , was a small cottage , surrounded by a garden , scooped out of the wood , which formed a back-ground to the enclosure . It had formerly been a gamekeeper ' s lodge , but , on my father ' s coming to the estate , he preferred permitting a little poaching to having the pain of much prosecuting , so the cottage for some time remained empty . It

    was a pretty place , even in the midst of all its disorder , with its thatched roof and rustic porch , and pillars of rough wood , to which the ivy and honeysuckle clung in the wildest profusion ; and casement windows , and larcu trees hanging their green festoons all round it , and a slope on one side down to a running stream : but the thatch had become worn , and the ivy had played all sorts of pranks , and was smothering the poor honeysuckle , and the windows were broken , and the slope , that should have been like velvet , was all rough with knotty tufts

    of coarse grass , and the little stream so choked with leaves and dirt , that it had lost even the power to murmur . I used to wander down in play hours to the deserted garden , till it became a sort of world of my own . All kinds of childish creations—palaces , castles , fortifications—sprung up out of the heaps of mould that were lying in all directions . My garden 'tome a kingdom was , ' I was * monarch of all I surveyed / and no one to * dispute my right / except the mice and the spiders , whose proceedings I every now and then reconnoitred through the broken panes of the cottage windows . This state of things did not last long ; : one

    morning a stranger called upon iny father , an elderly person in black ; she said she had been looking out in the neighbourhood for a cottage , where complete retirement , with the protection of an adjacent mansion , Blight be secured , —that the cottage at the end of the avenue appeared likely to suit her purpose , and that if my father were disposed to let it , be should like to enter upon it immediately . She was a tall , commanding looking woman , with piercing black eyes , remarkably erect , and with courtly manners . Child as I then was , I felt it would be impossible for her to enter the little humble porch of the cottage for which she was applying . My father evinced a feeling something akin t ° this , but quickly recovering from his surprise , his tone and manner became more kindly , and he expressed the hope that the cottage might give us so agreeable a neighbour , and proffered every assistance to * i * ke it habitable as soon as possible . I had not my father ' s benevo

    Knee , and did [ not like the lady with the black eyes , a little perhaps from the painfulness of their expression , but more , to my shame be it co&fessed , that she was about to invade my territory . Day after day , I *** aqd watched the downfall of my tiny palaces , thinking all the while taw much better I liked them , and the empty cottage , and the mice , and to ; i spiders , than I did the thought of my father ' s * agreeable neighbour *

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    The Three Visit * . 725

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    « o . 94 . 3 F

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1834, page 725, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2638/page/51/