who quite spoilt, as he observed, the propor- rejected in three days, would certainly have tions of the play. Again they made the tour of the Green, and Peggy had half promised to study the part of Juliet, when a difference arose out of this very subject which put an abrupt end to their courtship. From his personal adventures Stephen wandered to a general critique on plays and actors, especially to a warm encomium on one great actor, who was as he said his model. Peggy (who had seen the tragedian in question in Othello) assented heartily to the panegyric, adding, "that it was a great pity so clever a man should be black.". "Black!" ejaculated the astonished Stephen; "Black!!" "Yes," answered Peggy, “black; a blackamoor, a negro." Blackamoor!! Negro!!!" re-echoed Stephen, more and more astounded. “Mr. black! Are you dreaming? He's as fair as you are. What do you mean? What can you mean ?" hanged himself in Sally North's scarlet garters, had he not had the lucky resource of tender poesy, that admirable vent-peg of dis appointed love. He went back to Town, and ! wrote an elegy, and we have heard no more of him since. So much for our villagers. With regard to my own small territory, it has lost one of its! prime ornaments; my beautiful greyhound Mayflower is dead. Old age and the cold weather were too much for her. Poor pretty May! She lies under a rose-tree in a place she liked well. And my garden, "that bright bit of colour," as you call it, and which in the summer so well deserves the name; my garden is much like a small field newly harrowed, except that a grove of sticks seems to indicate the site of bulbs and perennials and other underground treasures. Matters are mending though. Two mild days have brought up a few green buds just peeping above the earth, and the borders begin to show symp "What I say," returned Peggy. "Did not toms of floweriness. The snowdrop, the cro I see him with my own eyes, and was not he cus, the hepatica, and the aconite are already' as black as a chimney-sweeper? and did not in blossom (to think of being able to count his wife and every body talk of his com- the flowers in my garden!) and the Mezereon, plexion all through the play? You need not and the Pyrus Japonica will be out to-mor stand there, Mr. Stephen, holding up your row. Things are certainly mending. My hands and eyes, and looking as if you thought green-house looks really spring-like, and the me a fool. I am not such a dunce as Sally robin which has inhabited that warm shelter North. I have been to London, and been to during the whole winter, making no further ; the play, and what I have seen I believe for excursion than to the honeysuckle opposite all your strange looks. He's as black as my and back again, has ventured to the great master's great greyhound,"-continued Peg-pear-tree, and has got a companion, the regue! gy, who had gradually talked herself into I should not wonder if he built him a nest, such a passion, that her cheeks generally like and only visited us when he wanted bread a cabbage-rose were of the colour of a red crums. cabbage" as black as your hat." The green-house does really give token of Stephen on his part was for the first time spring. You do not know my green-house,' in his life dumfounded; first at the singular dear Mary, but you must come and see it. mixture of ignorance and simplicity implied You have promised; have you not? At all in the assertion and the reasons brought to events you must come. It is the simplest support it; secondly at the impudence of the thing that ever was, and the prettiest-an exlittle country damsel who did not know West-cavation in a barn with glass in front looking minster Abbey from St. Paul's, and yet ven- on my nosegay of a garden, and serving, like tured to impugn his authority on such a point. Cowper's, the double purpose of a sheiter for Let me tell you-" he began, when a little recovered from his consternation, "Let me tell you, child-" Child!" interrupted Peggy, touched on the very point of dignity; "child yourself! It is well known that I am sixteen all but eight months, and as for you, you'll look like a boy all the days of your life. You play Tragedy! Why you're hardly tall enough for Punch. Child indeed! And I almost sixteen! Never come near me again, Mr. Long, I have nothing to say to you" and off marched Peggy; and poor Stephen twice This singular mistake did actually happen to a country girl of my acquaintance. I do not venture to put the actor's name,although surely it was a com the geraniums in winter, and a summer par- LOST AND WON. "NAV, but my dear Letty—" pliment in its way, not unlike that which Partridge Have not the East-Woodhay Eleven beaten. pand to Garrick. the Hazelby Eleven for the first time in the memory of man? and is it not entirely your about liking me-but still-and then aunt Judith, and Fanny Wright, and all the neighbours say However, I shall know to-morrow." And home she tripped to the pleasant house by the tan-yard, as happy as if the EastWoodhay men had not beaten the men of Hazelby. "I shall not see him before to-morrow, though," repeated Letty to herself, and immediately repaired to her pretty flower-garden, the little gate of which opened on a path leading from the Down to the street -a path that, for obvious reasons, Paul was wont to prefer-and began tying up her carnations in the dusk of the evening, and watering her geraniums by the light of the moon, until it was so late that she was fain to return, disappointed, to the house, repeating to herself, "I shall certainly see him to-morrow." Far different were the feelings of the chidden swain. Well-a-day for the age of chivalry! the happy times of knights and paladins, when a lecture from a lady's rosy lip, or a buffet from her lily hand, would have been “You! -Why Letty" "Don't Letty me, sir!-Don't talk to me! received as humbly and as thankfully as the -I am going home!" Benedicite from a mitred abbot, or the acco "With all my heart, Miss Letitia Dale!-lade from a king's sword! Alas for the days I have the honour, madam, to wish you a good of chivalry! They are gone, and I fear me evening." And each turned away at a smart for ever. For certain our present hero was pace, and the one went westward and the other not born to revive them. eastward-ho. Paul Holton was a well-looking and wellThis unlover-like parting occurred on Ha- educated young farmer, just returned from the zelby Down one fine afternoon in the Whit-north, whither he had been sent for agricul sun-week, between a couple whom all Hazel- tural improvement, and now on the look-out by and Aberleigh to boot, had, for at least a for a farm and a wife, both of which he month before, set down as lovers-Letty Dale, thought he had found at Hazelby, where he the pretty daughter of the jolly old tanner, and had come on the double errand of visiting Paul Holton, a rich young yeoman, on a visit some distant relations, and letting two or three in the place. Letty's angry speech will suf- small houses recently fallen into his possesficiently explain their mutual provocation, al- sion. As owner of these houses, all situate though, to enter fully into her feelings, one in the town, he had claimed a right to join the must be born in a cricketing parish, and Hazelby Eleven, mainly induced to avail himsprung of a cricketing family, and be accus- self of the privilege by the hope of winning tomed to rest that very uncertain and arbitrary favour in the eyes of the ungrateful fair one, standard, the point of honour, on beating our whose animated character, as well as her rivals and next neighbours in the annual match sparkling beauty, had delighted his fancy, and -for juxtaposition is a great sharpener of ri- apparently won his heart, until her rude attack valry, as Dr. Johnson knew, when, to please on his play armed all the vanity of man the inhabitants of Plymouth, he abused the against her attractions. Love is more intigood folks who lived at Dock; moreover, one mately connected with self-love than people must be also a quick, zealous, ardent, hot- are willing to imagine; and Paul Holton's headed, warm-hearted girl, like Letty, a beau- had been thoroughly mortified. Besides, if ty and an heiress, quite unused to disappoint- his fair mistress's character were somewhat ment, and not a little in love; and then we too impetuous, his was greatly over-firm. So shall not wonder, in the first place, that she he said to himself-"The girl is a pretty girl, should be unreasonably angry, or, in the next, but far too much of a shrew for my taming. that before she had walked half a mile her I am no Petruchio to master this Catharine. anger vanished, and was succeeded by tender I come to wive it happily in Padua:' and let relentings and earnest wishes for a full and her father be as rich as he may, I'll none of perfect reconciliation. "He'll be sure to call her." And, mistaking anger for indifference to-morrow morning," thought Letty to her--no uncommon delusion in a love-quarrelself: "He said he would, before this un- off he set within the hour, thinking so very lucky cricket-playing. He told me that he much of punishing the saucy beauty, that he had something to say, something particular. entirely forgot the possibility of some of the I wonder what it can be!" thought poor Let- pain falling to his own share. ty. "To be sure, he never has said any thing The first tidings that Letty heard the next morning were, that Mr. Paul Holton had de- And gentle wishes long subdued- Poor, poor Letty! standing joke amongst them, do his best or his worst in any way. Not a word of this did John Dale say to Letty; so that she was quite taken by surprise, when, having placed her father, now very infirm, in a comfortable chair, she sate down by his side on a little hillock of turf, and saй her recreant lover standing amongst a group of cricketers very near, and evidently gazing on her-just as he used to gaze three years. before. Perhaps Letty had never looked so pretty in her life as at that moment. She was simply drest, as became her fallen fortunes. Her, complexion was still coloured, like the app eblossom, with vivid red and white, but there was more of sensibility, more of the heart in its quivering mutability, its alternation cf paleness and blushes; the blue eyes were sul, as bright, but they were oftener cast down;, the smile was still as splendid, but far more rare; the girlish gaiety was gone, but it was replaced by womanly sweetness ;-sweetness and modesty formed now the chief express) t of that lovely face, lovelier, far lovelier, than ever. So apparently thought Paul Holton, fr he gazed and gazed with his whole soul in his eyes, in complete oblivion of cricket and cricketer, and the whole world. At last be ree llected himself, blushed and bowed, and advanced a few steps, as if to address her; but timid and irresolute, he turned away with ot speaking, joined the party who had new assembled round the wickets, the umpires called Play!" and the game began. Three years passed away, and brought much of change to our country-maiden and to her fortunes. Her father, the jolly old tanner, a kind, frank, thoughtless man, as the cognomen would almost imply, one who did not think that there were such things as wickedness and ingratitude under the sun, became bound for a friend to a large amount; the friend proved a villain, and the jolly tanner was ruined. He and his daughter now lived in a small cottage near their former house; and at the point of time at which I have, chosen to resume my story, the old man was endeavouring to persuade Letty, who had never attended a cricket-match since the one which she had so much cause to remember, to accompany him the next day (Whit-Tuesday) to see the Hazelby Eleven again encounter," their ancient antagonists, the men of EastWoodhay. "Pray come, Letty," said the fond father; "I can't go without you; I have no pleasure anywhere without my Letty; and I want to see this match, for Isaac Hunt can't play on account of the death of his mother, and they tell me that the East-Woodhay men have consented to our taking in another mate who practises the new Sussex bowling-I want to see that new-fangled mode. Do come, Letty!" And, with a smothered sigh at the mention of Sussex, Letty consented. East-Woodhay gained the toss and went in, and all eyes were fixed on the Sussex bowier. The ball was placed in his hands; and instantly the wicket was down, and the striker" out-no other than Tom Taylor, the boast of his parish, and the best batsman in the county. "Accident! mere accident!" of course, créd East-Woodhay; but another, and another followed: few could stand against the fatal bow!-| ing, and none could get notches. —A panie seized the whole side. And then, as losers, will, they began to exclaim against the system. | called it a toss, a throw, a trick; any thing i Now old John Dale was not quite ingenuous but bowling, any thing but cricket; railed at with his pretty daughter. He did not tell her it as destroying the grace of the attitude, and what he very well knew himself, that the the balance of the game; protested against = bowler in question was no other than their being considered as beaten by such juggery, j sometime friend, Paul Holton, whom the and finally, appealed to the umpires as to the business of letting his houses, or some other fairness of the play. The umpires, men cf cause, not, perhaps, clearly defined even to conscience, and old cricketers, hummed ani himself, had brought to Hazelby on the eve of hawed, and see-sawed; quoted contrading the match, and whose new method of bowling precedents and jostling authorities; looked (in spite of his former mischances) the Ha- grave and wise, whilst even their little sticks zelby Eleven were willing to try; the more of office seemed vibrating in puzzled import-¦ so as they suspected, what, indeed, actually ance. Never were judges more sorely peroccurred, that the East-Woodhayites, who plexed. At last they did as the sages of the would have resisted the innovation of the Sus- bench often do in such cases-reserved the sex system of delivering the ball in the hands of any one else, would have no objection to let Paul Holton, whose bad playing was a point of law, and desired them to “play oct the play." Accordingly the match was resumed; only twenty-seven notches being gained by the East-Woodhayians in their first innings, and they entirely from the balls of the old Hazelby bowler, James White. During the quarter of an hour's pause which the laws allow, the victorious man of Sussex went up to John Dale, who had watched him with a strange mixture of feeling, delighted to hear the stumps rattle, and to see opponent after opponent throw down his bat and walk off, and yet much annoyed at the new method by which the object was achieved. "We should not have called this cricket in my day," said he, "and yet it knocks down the wickets gloriously, too." Letty, on her part, had watched the game with unmingled interest and admiration: "He knew how much I liked to see a good cricketer," thought she; yet still, when that identical good cricketer approached, she was seized with such a fit of shyness-call it modesty that she left her seat and joined a group of young women at some distance. "Call her Letty, Mr. Holton," interrupted the old man; "plain Letty. We are poor folks now, and have no right to any other title than our own proper names, old John Dale and his daughter Letty. A good daughter she has been to me," continued the fond father; "for when debts and losses took all that we had-for we paid to the uttermost farthing, Mr. Paul Holton, we owe no man a shilling! -when all my earnings and savings were gone, and the house over our head-the house I was born in, the house she was born in-I loved it the better for that!-taken away from us, then she gave up the few hundreds she was entitled to in right of her blessed mother to purchase an annuity for the old man, whose trust in a villain had brought her to want." "God bless her!" interrupted Paul Holton. "Ay, and God will bless her," returned the old man solemnly-"God will bless the dutiful child, who despoiled herself of all to support her old father!" "Blessings on her dear generous heart!" again ejaculated Paul; " and I was away and knew nothing of this!" "I knew nothing of it myself until the deed was completed," rejoined John Dale. "She was just of age, and the annuity was purchased and the money paid before she told me; and a cruel kindness it was to strip herself for my sake; it almost broke my heart when I heard the story. But even that was nothing," continued the good tanner, warming with his subject, "compared with her conduct since. If you could but see how she keeps the house, and how she waits upon me; her handiness, her cheerfulness, and all her pretty ways and contrivances to make me forget old times and old places. Poor thing! she must miss her neat parlour and the flower-garden she was so fond of, as much as I do my tanyard and the great hall; but she never seems to think of them, and never has spoken a hasty word since our misfortunes, for all you know, poor thing! she used to be a little quick-tempered!" "And I knew nothing of this!" repeated Paul Holton, as, two or three of their best wickets being down, the Hazelby players summoned him to go in. "I knew nothing of all this!" 66 Again all eyes were fixed on the Sussex cricketer, and at first he seemed likely to verify the predictions and confirm the hopes of the most malicious of his adversaries, by batting as badly as he had bowled well. He had not caught sight of the ball; his hits were weak, his defence insecure, and his mates began to tremble and his opponents to crow. Every hit seemed likely to be the last; he missed a leg ball of Ned Smith's; was all but caught out by Sam Newton; and EastWoodhay triumphed, and Hazelby sat quaking; when a sudden glimpse of Letty, watching him with manifest anxiety, recalled her champion's wandering thoughts. Gathering himself up he stood before the wicket another man; knocked the ball hither and thither, to the turnpike, the coppice, the pond; got three, four, five at a hit; baffled the slow bowler James Smith, and the fast bowler Tom Taylor; got fifty-five notches off his own bat; stood out all the rest of his side; and so handled the adverse party when they went in, that the match was won at a single innings, with six-and-thirty runs to spare. 66 Whilst his mates were discussing their victory, Paul Holton again approached the father and daughter, and this time she did not run away: Letty, dear Letty," said he; "three years ago I lost the cricket-match, and you were angry, and I was a fool. But Letty, dear Letty, this match is won; and if you could but know how deeply I have repented, how earnestly I have longed for this day! The world has gone well with me, Letty, for these three long years. I have wanted nothing but the treasure which I myself threw away; and now, if you would but let your father be my father, and my home your home! - if you would but forgive me, Letty!" Letty's answer is not upon record: but it is certain that Paul Holton walked home from the cricket-ground that evening with old John Dale hanging on one arm, and John Dale's pretty daughter on the other; and that a month after the bells of Hazelby church were ringing merrily in honour of one of the fairest and luckiest matches that ever cricketer lost and won. CHILDREN OF THE VILLAGE. AMY LLOYD. "Part with Floss!" cried Amv. Part with my own Flossy!"-and she flung down her violets, and caught her faithful pet in her arms, as if fearful of its being snatched away; and Floss, as if partaking of the fear, nested up to his young mistress, and pressed his head against her cheek. ONE fine sunshiny March morning, a lady, driving herself in a pony-carriage through Aberleigh lane, stopped beside a steep bank to look at a little girl and her dog in the ad-| Do not be alarmed, my dear," replied the joining field. The hedge had been closely lady, preparing to drive on; "I am not going cut, except where a tuft of hazel with its long to steal your favourite, but I would give tive tassels hung over some broom in full flower, guineas for a dog like him; and if ever you and a straggling bush of the white-blossomed į meet with such a one, you have only to send sloe was mixed with some branches of palms, it to Lumley castle. I am Lady Lum!. y." from which the bees were already gathering added she. "Good morning, love! F. honey. The little girl was almost as busy as well, Flossy!" And, with a kind nod, the the bees: she was gathering violets, white lady and the pony-chaise passed rapidly : violets and blue, with which the sunny bank and Amy and Flossy returned to Court farm. was covered; and her little dog was barking! Amy was an orphan, and had only late.y at a flock of sheep feeding in that part of the field, for it was a turnip field that was hurdled off for their use. The dog was a small French spaniel, one of the prettiest ever seen, with long curly hair, snow white, except that the ears and three or four spots on the body were yellow; large feathered feet, and bright black eyes: just the sort of dog of which fine ladies love to make pets. It was curious to see this beautiful little creature, driving before it a great flock of sheep, ewes, lambs, and all-for sheep are sad cowards! And then, when driven to the hurdles, the sheep, cowards though they were, were forced to turn about; how they would take courage at sight of their enemy, advancing a step or two and pretending to look brave; then it was diverting to see how the little spaniel, frightened itself, would draw back barking towards its mistress, almost as sad a coward as the sheep. The lady sat watching their proceedings with great amusement, and at last addressed the little girl, a nice lass of ten years old in deep mourning. "Whose pretty little dog is that, my dear?" asked the lady. "Mine, madam," was the answer. not common." "It belonged to poor mamma. Poor papa brought it from France." And the look and the tone told at once that poor Amy was an orphan. And you and the pretty dog-what's its name?" said the lady, interrupting herself. Flossy, ma'am dear Flossy!" And | Amy stooped to stroke the curly, silky, glossy coat which had probably gained Flossy his appellation; and Flossy in return jumped on his young mistress, and danced about her with tenfold glee. "You and Flossy live hereabout?" inquired the lady. Close by, ma'am; at Court farm, with my uncle and aunt Lloyd." And you love Flossy !" resumed the lady; "You would not like to part with him?" come to live with her good uncle and aunt Lloyd, rough honest country people; and being a shy meek-spirited child, who had just lost her most affectionate parents, and had been used to soft voices and gentle manners, Į was so frightened at the loud speech of the farmer and the blunt ways of his wife, that she ran away from them as often as she e4. and felt as forlorn and desolate as any it girl can do who has early learnt the blessed lesson of reliance on the Father of all. Her chief comfort at Court farm was to pet Flossy and to talk to old Dame Clewer, the charwman, who had been her own mother's nurse. Dame Clewer had known better days; bet having married late in life, and been soon lett a widow, she had toiled early and late to bri up an only son; and all her little earnings had gone to apprentice him to a carpenter and rep him decently clothed; and he, although rather, lively and thoughtless, was a dutiful and grateful son, and being now just out of his ' time, had gone to the next town to try to get work, and hoped to repay his good mother -1. her care and kindness by supporting her out of his earnings. He had told his mother so, when setting off the week before, and she hi repeated it with tears in her eyes to Amy tears of joy; and Amy on her return to ra house, went immediately in search of her ed friend, whom she knew to be washing the res partly to hear over again the story of Themes Clewer's goodness, partly to tell her own 23venture with Lady Lumley. In the drying yard, as she expected, Amy found Dame Clewer; not however, as she expected, smiling and busy, and delighted to see Miss Amy, but sitting on the ground by the side of the clothes-basket, her head buried in her hands, and sobbing as if her heart wou'd break. "What could be the matter? Whe| did she cry so?" asked Amy. And Dame Clewer, unable to resist the kind interest evinced by the affectionate child, told her: briefly the cause of her distress — → Thomas had enlisted!" How few words may convey a great sorrow!-"Thomas was gone for a |