enough of travelling about. Much as people like that rambling existence, a day comes when they long for the quiet and retirement of a home life. Laura's education many people considered but an excuse. 'As if every one does not know,' as Miss Seeley more than once remarked to my mother, 'that the best education in the world can be had at Holcroft-every accomplishment a young lady in the nineteenth century could require.' And when she wound up her remarks by a triumphant appeal to my attainments as a proof, my mother was no mother if she did not fully agree with her. A list of my accomplishments would in no way tend to the elucidation of my history; suffice it to say, that I was no better nor no worse than the usual run of young ladies one meets with in society, and with sufficient sense to conceal my deficiencies when among my superiors in acquire

ments.

Laura's education being now considered to be completed, Uncle Geoffrey wrote announcing his intended return to take up his abode at Holcroft Hall; and before many weeks had elapsed, the old house had wakened up into new life after its long slumber, with my cousin Laura as its mistress. How charming she was! -such gaiety, such life, such untiring good-humour! No wonder we all fell in love with her before ten days had passed after her arrival.

Nor were the Holcroftians the only worshippers. In due time the county families heard of my uncle's return, and came to welcome him among them, and all with one voice pronounced Miss Holcroft perfection. By-and-by the social civilities were returned at the Hall, and then what a delightful time it was for us! Our life had been hitherto so secluded and uniform, that the change to one or two evening parties a week, with walks and drives in the morning of every day, made for us dissipation, which was almost equal to anything we had ever heard of a London season. Weeks passed on, and still Laura was quite the rage in the county. For miles round Holcroft, men, women, and children raved of her, how she dressed, how she

spoke, how she danced, how she sung, how she played, where she went,-it was nothing but Miss Holcroft of Holcroft, from morning till night.

There is one difference in being a county belle from being a town belle, and I am not sure but it is considerably in favour of the former. The position is in general one slowly reached. It takes many morning visits and many sober dinner parties to spread the news that a belle is domiciled among us. Some gentlemen at the county town on market days exchange opinions; but, then, consider these meetings only take place once a week. How very slow! our town friends will say. Slow, I grant you; but then, how very sure! After the information and opinions are interchanged, if the latter be favourable, her position is then accorded, she becomes the belle of her circle; and this height once attained, it is marvellous how long it can be kept. If country people are slow to imbibe an opinion, thank heaven they are slower still to relinquish it. A belle is a belle for long enough, and always spoken of as such for years and years to come. I was about to insert a remark upon the ringing of a bell(e) costing her her position, when I fortunately recollected my cousin, John Theodore Smith, whose papers were indignantly returned by an able editor,' for a pun not half so audacious.

I was away from home a few weeks ago, hearing Madame Titiens sing at the Birmingham Festival, and during my absence our horticultural ball took place at Fenbury. I have now before me five letters, all well crossed, and none of them dated (as young ladies are above such absurd trifles); but I have no difficulty in fixing the day on which they were written. They are the letters of my five dearest friends, who pity me from their hearts for having missed the great event of the year at Fenbury. As if the warbling of Adeline Patti, not to speak of the sublime "Elijah," was not far preferable to a horticultural show in the morning, and quadrilles and waltzes in the evening, in the Assembly-rooms at Fenbury! Nevertheless, I thank my

friends, and thank them cordially, too. So vivid are the descriptions, I almost fancy I have been there, and I know no fancy could bring such a dream as There is nothing.' How strangely one passage clings to us sometimes!-and such a little one,

too!

I lift number one of my five letters. I pass over the regrets at my absence: they are kind, and as sincere, as such things ever are in this world. I read, Our cousin, Ethelinda Hobbs, was decidedly the belle, both morning and evening.

She

wore,' &c. &c. I spare my readers the details, and turn to another, letter number two. Sarah Fisher looked beautiful. I felt proud of our town furnishing the belle of the evening, as unquestionably she was; though Blanche Duprey made more show in the morning, owing to her Parisian bonnet.' In the letter Blanche Duprey's flippant sister I read, I wish the stewards had provided men to stand at the doors and turn back all the ill-dressed women, as the men in Queen Elizabeth's time prevented those ladies entering the city gates whose ruffs were more than a yard deep. Why must one suffer nausea when they wish to enjoy themselves? meaning of this is, that Sarah Fisher would have frightened the crows,— such a dress, and such a wreath as could only have come out of Noah's ark.' So on writes Cicely Duprey. How do you like her style? Classical, is it not?

The

I want you, my good reader, to understand from these extracts something of what constitutes a belle in a country district. It is, in fact, more reputation than reality. Once establish the fact, or rather fiction, as being a fact, and the thing is settled, and settled for life. Every neighbourhood has its belle, and let it; I have no objection. I wish to break up no man or woman's delusions, or rather illusions; my private opinion is, that life would be worth very little without them; and if we have each our favourite ones, it is nobody's business.

There is the delusion of poetry, as innocent and harmless a one as can well be imagined. Some of us, sober,

middle-aged, prosaic people, can look back upon a time in our lives when we really enjoyed a little poetry, when a book recommended to us by one whose taste we considered unimpeachable was pronounced divine, and, such is the force of our sweet delusions, we believed it too. The same with a picture or a song; and, though the time and the individual may pass away from us, the impression never does. We pass through life, go quietly to our graves, firmly believing Haynes Bayly the first of English poets, and wondering our daughters do not weep over the 'Pleasures of Hope,' or enjoy Thomson's Seasons.' I have a friend who considers Henry Russell the only musician in the world, she having a pulse which beats a little faster when some old copy of 'A life on the ocean wave' falls out of the Canterbury, in remembrance of one who used to sing it lang syne;' and yet when she went with us the other day to hear 'Un Ballo in Maschera,' she had hardly patience to sit it out. Tiresome, monotonous noise,' she called it. The truth was, her musical education begun and ended in Henry Russell and 1840. Her soul could reach no farther, poor thing!

In making these unamiable reremarks, I do not wish it to be supposed that Laura Holcroft's belledom was a popular delusion. Looking back now, I say, and say with that truth which looking back gives, that I think she deserved all the praises lavished upon her. Even the sober matrons, who criticised severely a young lady who set their sons' hearts a-flame, pronounced her dinner-parties properly given, little thinking how much she owed to my mother's care that no Holcroft prejudice was outraged, nor county code violated.

CHAPTER II.

OUR NEW CURATE AND THE NEW
CHOIR.

Holcroft Hall made the first change in our lives, and in course of time brought about the second one also.

Mr. Seeley was old, and well stricken in years. Unfortunately parishes do not become old and well

stricken in years too. There is always young blood coming forward requiring care and attention the poor old rector is unable to give. So saw my uncle, and the result was his offer of giving our good rector a curate. It would be too long to tell of how his offer was accepted, and how the Rev. Horace Mills came, and of the excitement consequent on such an arrival, and how the hearts of ladies clave unto him. It scarcely affects our tale.

Suffice it to say, that the Rev. Horace was a model curate. In appearance tall, slight, and not illfavoured; in manner quiet, courteous, and unassuming, he won golden opinions on all sides.

As time passed on a great aptitude for his profession developed itself by degrees in his character, and he threw himself heart and soul into his work. Crusades were commenced against every abuse in men and morals which his apathetic rector had allowed to grow on unchecked, and day and night he gave himself to the work. Had his success but equalled his exertions, and could he but have learned the secret of being ubiquitous, our parish would soon have been the fairest Utopia of which sanguine philanthropist ever dreamed.

It is not always that a wish to reform the lives of our neighbours is a course productive of personal popularity; but Mr. Mills was no victim to persecution. Applause followed his least exertions, and old heads in much amazement looked on and cried, like Dominie Sampson, 'Prodi-gious!' at each fresh outbreak of our curate's energy.

If the gentlemen were inclined to grumble, the ladies put them down, -they were to a woman on the side of Mr. Mills. We went into Mr. Brown's, our grocer's shop, one day, and in course of conversation with Mrs. Brown, who appeared promptly on our entrance, that good woman said

'Oh! ladies, until Mr. Mills came I never knew that so many things I was in the habit of doing every day were wicked, now I assure you I am awake. Why, I might have slept on for a hundred years.'

Scarcely acknowledging this as a possibility, we left the shop, but we could not but allow he had stirred our parish into a very lively state.

As I said before, the ladies applauded his efforts, and presented small testimonials of their esteem in the form of slippers, band cases, cushions, markers, sermon cases, currant jam for sore throat, pulse warmers, and sponge cake; so with these substantial proofs of public opinioni. e., feminine- Mr. Mills felt himself nerved to face the most Augean task to be found in Holcroft.

If he had a fault-if I say with great respect, for so many people consider the popular opinion the correct one that I may unconsciously be outraging the feelings of my dearest friend-if Mr. Mills had a fault it was the one of being a degree tiresome when we met with him upon this endless theme, the parish.'

I dare say it originated in the absorbing nature of his occupation, or it may have been the heavy sense of his responsibilities which made all other themes seem trivial and uninteresting; but really three times a week was as often as one could listen to the same anecdote of Widow Jones over again. No matter what subject we introduced, Mr. Mills was sure in five minutes to have brought the conversation back into his favourite channel.

It was some time after this meekeyed young man came among us, and just when his popularity had reached its climax, that Laura's birthday fell, and my uncle had collected a number of young people together to celebrate the anniversary. Mr. Mills was of the party. If he ever came out like Boswell on Johnson on his favourite theme, it was on this occasion, until Laura could stand it no longer. In despair she tried to turn the conversation to other subjects, books, music, travelling, pictures, and such nondescript themes as suit English dinner society, for the sake of friends present from other parishes, who could not be expected to be interested in the affairs of ours. All in vain; the indefatigable young man would begin

again about Tibbs's ale-house, Burton's pig, and the dead wall at Robinson's, succeeded by a parish apprentice, Fibbs the saddler, the society for discountenancing vice, and the benighted schoolmistress, until even Uncle Geoffrey's patience showed symptoms of giving way.

He came to his daughter's aid, and appealed to Mr. Mills for an opinion on architecture in Oxford, and on college towers there — no use; boat races on the Cam-worse still; cricket-no response; vacant bishoprica dead letter. Oxford

and Cambridge scemed to lie far away, old shadows of something once imagined, never realized; the most discriminating observer could not have told in which university the Reverend Horace had graduated. In these days we might have tried 'Essays and Reviews' with some hope of success, but it was long before the days of these bomb-shells, and Mr. Mills had no interest in 'Tracts for the Times.'

Our neighbour, Rupert Ansted, sat enjoying Laura's discomfiture. Before the advent of Mr. Mills, Rupert had been a small king among us. No party was complete without him, no one else preferred before him.

Now, indeed, things were different: Mr. Mills was everything, and he nothing. Instead of a quadrille and deux temps when we went out for tea, we covered tracts to be lent, read, kept clean, and returned,' or measured flannel for old women's petticoats, or made coarse blouses for destitute boys.

All very well in its way,' Rupert once magnanimously said; but do let us have something like old times instead of these newly-imported customs. Can you not do them in the mornings, or on wet days? I am tired of this man; if I want you to come out to ride with me, it is a club-day, or your turn at the school, or there is a blanket to be bought, or some other light put in a candlestick to give light to the house. You are learning ostentatious benevolence, Honora,' he would say to ine in his wrath, and what could I say in return?

On this occasion Rupert was wick

VOL. I.-NO. I.

edly happy. Dear fellow!' he would say aside to me, I defy his worst enemy, if he has such a thing, to do more for him.'

Then Rupert would talk to Laura of Paganini, and tell the absurd worn-out old story of the American bird said to have but one leg, and which he finds answers all purposes as well as two, besides gaining a great deal of applause for his agility.

Then he would turn to Miss Seeley, and ask her opinion of the veracious history of Herr Von Wodenblock, who, with his machineryfitted cork leg is still running through the world, and cannot be stopped.

It was quite a relief to get into the drawing-room, and leave the parish' behind us: but matters did not mend when the gentlemen came in. The parish' would draw a chair first beside one, and then beside another, and in a monotonous voice, that purled on like a running brook, continue his catalogue of grievances.

At last, by a progression of themes, he hit on one more interesting than the previous ones to most of his listeners, that of' church psalmody.'

Be it known unto the readers of this chronicle that the musical portion of the church service at Holcroft was at this time, and had been from time immemorial, conducted by four talented individuals John Smart, who played upon a keybugle, number one; Ebenezer Smart, his brother, who played another bugle, number two; Felix Trundle, who did immense execution with a tremendous bassoon; and, lastly, Joseph Hickman, who was exceedingly self-important and conceited because of the imposing appearance of his violoncello. The music was in a style fast dying out of rural England; and as well so, for whose risible faculties could stand such an exhibition as we had Sunday after Sunday in Holcroft church? Laura never was able to control herself, and though Uncle Geoffrey lectured her, and professed to set her a good example, I know he sometimes laughed behind his pocket-handkerchief.

F

Mr. Mills was painfully aware of Miss Holcroft's levity: the manor pew was too near for her to escape his observation; and as he dared not openly rebuke her, he now determined to strike at the root of the matter, cut off the cause, and the effect would take care of itself. He had waited patiently for an auspicious moment to introduce the theme, and such, he believed, was

now come.

He began cautiously, by making some strictures on the present state of psalmody in our parish, and finding no opposition to his opinion, expressed a wish that some of those present would co-operate with him, in order to bring about some reform. It was just the idea suited to the company present. All the ladies considered themselves musicians, and the gentlemen were at least judges, so everything was ripe for a thorough reformation.

'If,' said our young reformer,' an instrument could be procured which would be a substitute for the singular accompaniment to the psalms now in use, a more devotional character could be given to the service, and an air of decorum thrown over the congregation.' (Here Laura winced.) The Holcroftians shook their heads. They were sadly behind the times, and had yet to learn that even an Augean stable can be cleansed if people know how to set about it.

Candidly, my dear sir,' said my uncle, if it is an organ you are driving at, I cannot afford it. I have already put up a new spire, four new windows, and a railing to the chancel; I shall do no more, this year at least.'

He did not say, 'I pay yourself,' but we all knew it.

'No, no, dear sir,' cried Mr. Mills, in horror, I meant no such thing. You have been most generous, and far be it from me to endeavour to trade upon your benevolence. alluded to a harmonium. Have you ever seen a harmonium, ladies?'

I

We said we had not, and Rupert asked, Was it all like a cherubim ?' by which I afterwards discovered he meant a seraphine; but Mr. Mills

silenced him at once, and proceeded to inoculato us all with the harmonium mania, which has become so prevalent in rural England, and I am told in Ireland, even more so at the present day. He first demonstrated to us what was meant by a harmonium. 'An instrument,' he said, played like a piano, but of splendid full tones, resembling an organ, and would take up no more space than an ordinary square pianoforte."'

He then drew from his pocket a small thin book, and read to a very attentive audience this passage:—

'As an instrument for sacred purposes, the harmonium certainly possesses many important claims upon our notice. In small country churches, where there are no funds to purchase an organ, or whereif a patron be found to present one -an organist could not be paid, the harmonium ably supplies its place. As regards the player, there is no difficulty; the vicar's lady, or the family governess, by the aid of a small guide-book, and a few days' practice, will become perfectly competent to accompany the psalms and chants. A few simple chords, that produce no effect on the pianoforte, make a "heavenly sound" upon the harmonium. Indeed, the small skill required in its performance is one great charm of this instrument. The musical services in some of our country churches might be greatly improved by the introduction of a harmonium. It would be the means of an "harmonic civilization" in some places, and cause in time the banishment of those "grotesque howlings which too often mingle with religious service.'

ra;

"Grotesque howlings!' cried Lau

'that must mean Holcroft church! What a charming instrument, Mr. Mills! Pray let us have one at once.'

'Not so fast, young lady,' cried Uncle Geoffrey, let us hear a little more about these harmoniums. What would one cost?'

From six pounds to sixty,' said Mr. Mills.

'How absurdly cheap!' Laura broke in. Papa, you will get us one immediately?"