Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 096.djvu/290

276 My wishes were granted; I descried at length a real tenement, without spires or towers, whose outline became sharper and more defined the nearer I approached, and which, flanked by stacks of peat, looked larger than it really was.

The inhabitants were unknown to me. Their clothing was poor; their furniture of the plainest description; but I knew that the dwellers on the heath often hid their precious metal in some secret depository, and that a tattered garb sometimes concealed a well-lined pocket-book. When, on going in, I observed a recess filled with stockings, I shrewdly guessed that I had introduced myself into the abode of a wealthy hosier (in a parenthesis be it said, that I never knew a poor one).

An elderly, grey-haired, but still vigorous man, advanced to meet me, and with a cordial "welcome" offered me his hand. "May I be permitted to ask," he added, "where my guest comes from?" One must not take umbrage at so blunt and unmannerly a question. The rustic of the heath is almost as hospitable as the Scotch lairds, though rather more inquisitive; but, after all, one cannot blame him that he seeks to know whom he entertains. When I had enlightened him as to who I was and whence I came, he called his wife, who without loss of time set before me the best the house contained, kindly inviting me to partake of it; an invitation which I was not slow in accepting.

I was in the midst of my repast, and also in the midst of a political conversation with mine host, when a young and uncommonly beautiful girl came in, whom I should indubitably have pronounced to have been a young lady in disguise, who had made her escape from cruel parents or hateful guardians, had not her red hands and country dialect convinced me that there was no travestissement in the case. She curtsied with a pleasant smile, looked under the table, went hastily out, and soon returned to the room with a dish of bread and milk, which she placed on tho ground, saying, "Your dog will probably also want something to eat."

T thanked her for her kind consideration; but my gratitude was nothing compared to that of the great dog, whose greed had soon caused the dish to be emptied, and who then thanked the fair donor after his own fashion, by jumping roughly upon her; and when she, in some alarm, threw her arms up in the air, Chasseur mistook her meaning, sprung up higher, and brought the shrieking girl to the ground. I called the dog off, of course, and endeavoured to convince the damsel of his good intentions. I should not have drawn the reader's attention to so trivial a matter, but to introduce a remark, namely, that everything is becoming to beauty; for every motion and every look of this rural fair one had a natural grace and charm, which the well-tutored coquette might in vain try to assume.

When she had left the room, I asked the good people if she was their daughter. They answered in the affirmative, adding that she was their only child.

"You will not have her long with you," I remarked.

"God help us! what do you mean?" asked the father; but a sort of self-satisfied smile showed me that he full well understood my meaning.

"I think," I replied, "that she is likely to have a great many wooers."

"Oh!" muttered he, "wooers are in plenty; but unless they are worth something, what is the use of talking of them. To come a wooing