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EARLY LIFE AND LIFE ON THE GOLDFIELDS.

On Eccleston Hill, near the outskirts of St. Helens, Lancashire, England, there stands an old-fashioned, two-storey, stone cottage, with small latticed windows, a wooden porch, and a picturesque aspect.

A tidy pathway leads from a rustic gate to the porch. In the spring and summer the garden is gay with flowers; at one end of the house an old tree almost shades an upstairs window from view; and ivy and other creeping plants cling to the wall and strive to peep into the windows and doors.

The cottage is very weather-beaten; and well it might be, for it has stood on Eccleston Hill, in storm and sunshine, for over 200 years. Some of the old residents of the town, indeed, say that it has seen exactly 300 summers, but in this there seems to be more surmise than evidence.

The cottage has a history. It could hardly help having one at its time of life. Its past, however, can only be partly guessed at. In the pretty little garden, curious stones, bearing signs of the work of some craftsman, have been found in fairly large numbers. There was once a large collection of these stones, some of which have been elaborately carved, and others bear inscriptions that nobody can decipher. An old cross was in the collection, but it has been missing for many years, and has