In my succeeding rides past this little enclosure, I observed with curiosity the progress of improvement, for there was improvement at work. The garden grew fuller of plants, and was better cultivated. It, in time, had a goodly row of gooseberry and currant bushes; its rows of peas and beans, its onion and carrot beds, its marigold flowers to flavour their pottage, its little borders of sage, and rue, and winter-savory; even its house-side border of flowers, with conspicuous bushes of rosemary and sweetbriar. The house itself grew slowly into better state. First, its rough walls were plastered, then its fern roof gave place to one of good thatch, its paper windows were succeeded by real glass ones. Young pear-trees were nailed to its walls, and apple-trees were planted in the garden. Presently afterwards, I espied a pigsty-the settlement was evidently flourishing. Presently I saw another piece of land enclosed; the garden lay on one side of the house, this on the other. The man, said I, grows ambitious, what wants he this for? The next time I passed, I saw the piece was dug, and covered with a springing crop of wheat. Here was a corn-field indeed! What can the man have more? He had something more,—a bee-hive! and year after year, I saw one hive after another set by the side of the first, till there was absolutely a row of nine under a shed, which had been lengthened every year. The trees in the garden grew up, and were covered with fruit; the garden grew perfectly thick and bushy with its exuberant crops. But if the house and garden had flourished, so had the children,—I never saw such a swarm,—the poor man was obliged to lengthen his house as he had lengthened his bee-shed. There were girls growing up fast; one was seen going to and fro, helping in the house; another was fetching water, and going in her little grey cloak to the village on errands;

a third was carrying about a great fat baby, half as large as herself. Two ragged lads lay rolling and playing on the greensward before the dwelling, keeping a sharp lookout up and down the lane, to see if any one approached the gate, and at the first glimpse of a person away they bounded like young roes, It mattered not whether the passenger was on horseback or foot, open the gate they would, and stood expecting each a halfpenny. It was then my amusement to put my pony into a smart trot, as if I would outgo the lads and open the gate myself; and then what a scamper and a puffing was there! Their wild shaggy hair flew and danced in the sunshine,—their ragged jackets seemed as if they would be shaken off their backs, and their bad, loose shoes on their stockingless feet went slip-slap on the smooth, hard road. The nearer I came the faster they scuffled on, till off they threw their shoes, and ran and bounded like young bucks. It was amazing to see their speed, and laughable to witness their wild anxiety.

To my surprise I one day found these lads in capital clothes, and mentioning the circumstance to the gentleman to whose house I used to ride that way, "Aha!" said he, "I can tell you how that happened. and one of my brothers agreed to play them a prank; so we measured them accurately with our eye, and got each a jacket and trousers made, and took them with us the next time we went. When the lads were running and had nearly reached the gate, we spurred on our horses, and, coming up with them, off we leaped and seized each a lad. At first there was a terrified silence; and then, as we began to strip off their rags, a most terrible uproar and struggling, as if we were about to strip them of jewels and silks instead of rags; but as the new clothes were unfolded on the road, the clamour as suddenly ceased; they slipped

their bare red legs into the trousers as nimbly as possible; they were buttoned up in a moment, and giving each of them a gentle slap on the shoulders, off they ran at full speed, looking each moment down at themselves and then back at us, as if jealous we should pursue, and undo all that we had done.

“We laughed heartily at our joke, and went on. When we returned some days afterwards, we no sooner came in sight of the hut than we saw the lads jump up from the greensward, and out came father, mother, great girl, middle girl, lesser girl, and least girl of all, with the baby in her arms,—with bows and curtsies, and most vociferous thanks for this little act of kindness."

I used to pity these children, but I don't pity them now. I pity scarcely any ragged, or cold, or solitary lad that I see in the country; the hardships of factory children are the hardships of their lives, but those of country children are but the pinchings of a short season now and then. They are not compelled to take their food as they stand before never-ceasing machines-fit images of eternal torture—in the hot and flocky atmosphere of a mill; they do not meet as strangers from the swarming dens of an overgrown town but they know each other from their births; the sky is above their heads-the vital air from the hills and the seas rishes over their frames. They walk about at liberty, and go from moderate hours of labour to comfort and sound sleep. The children working in the brick-yards withbare legs and bodies smeared with clay, or those in the hop-grounds of England, picking the hop-flowers that nod luxuriartly from the tall poles, while other merry children are bringing them to them; the boy who sits for long hours, turning the great wheel of the rope-maker; I ask who can pity them? And where should we find the other

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country children? Why, in gardens and shrubberies, weeding beds of flowers and culinary herbs, and carrying away dead boughs and cuttings of trees for the gardeners. We should find them in summer, active in the hay and cornfield; keeping watch, armed with a rod of office tipped with a piece of scarlet cloth, over geese and turkeys with their broods. We should descry them gathering berries on the sunny heaths, and mushrooms from the old pastures. In the autumn the acorns come pattering down from the oaks for them to gather; the chestnut and the triangular beech-nut lie plentifully in the woods; and the nuts exhibit their tawny clusters for their eager hands. They are gleaners abroad, and thrashers of their little harvests at home; helping their mothers to spread out a sheet on the greensward of the open common, and winnowing thei little heap of grain in the free winds of heaven.

Happy dogs are they all! Pity them! Phoh! I love them every one, and delight to remember them as making the country pleasant by their presence. Hark! I seem even now to hear the bird-boys blowing their horns in the distant fields, or a score or two of these country urchins shouting after the harvest-home wagon.

WELL, you know where my grandfather lived: I have already told you that it was at the Fall, below Heanor, a village of Derbyshire. As I have said, his ancestors had lived there for many generations, and his son, now an old man, is living there too,-the last of his race. When he goes, the family and the name go from the Fall. You know it is a pleasant place. It stands on a verdant lawn facing the south, near the bottom of a wide and extensive valley. From the front windows you see pleasant uplands running southward; and at the top, from amongst trees, rise the