During the time of her performance, Master Rufus Mull leant over the back of her chair, in an attitude (help the mark!) deemed by him to be graceful, nodding his head, and swinging his person backwards and forwards, in what he called time, but which, in my opinion, was out of place at least, and well do I remember wishing that at one of his patronizing nods, his head might roll from his shoulders, for his presumption. When the song was concluded, he gave some praise, qualified with a recommendation, (for which I could have choked him) as to an alteration in one or two cadences; and more than once ventured to take her hand, and place it in a different position on the lute, saying that "thus the arm gave more grace to the general appearance, and consequently pleased the eye, as well as charmed the ear."

Mr. Mead now conversed with my mother, and left us to amuse ourselves. I tried to interpose a word, and to cut across Master Rufus in every thing he said; but all would not do—my tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of my mouth. My

cousin, nay, they both saw that I was embarrassed, and she, in my distorted imagination, seemed to be amused at it. Being unable to endure this state of things, I arose abruptly and quitted the

room.

I could not sit down, neither could I stand still; without any definable cause, I was ready to burst into tears; and before the tempest within had subsided, I had left the house, walked through the garden, and at length found myself in the stable, standing by the side of Isabel's palfrey, patting and caressing her prettily arched neck. While I was thus engaged, Ingram Watts, our groom, came into the stable without seeing me, and began to rub down the horses of Master Mull and his attendant, who was refreshing himself in our kitchen; occasionally interrupting the low sort of hissing noise with which he accompanied his exertions, by a sound whack upon the ribs of either the one or the other, as they might or might not happen quietly to submit to the attention he bestowed. I soon saw that my friend Watts was also

not well pleased, for at any other time he would sooner have struck himself than a horse; and a moment after I heard Annette, the maid-servant that attended upon my mother and Isabel, calling loudly from the bottom of the garden upon the reluctant groom

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Ingram, I say-Ingram Watts !”

No reply, but he hissed and brushed the faster. "Ingram, I say what, Ingram ?"

He only muttered-" What indeed what me no whats-I's not a Watts for she."

Annette had now left the garden, and arrived at the stable door, which she flung wide open in a manner which startled the guest's horses so much that one of them stamped on the toe of the very man she was in search of, and forced him to give her an audible assurance of his presence :—

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Why, Ingram! thou hast been called upon this hour; canst thou not hear?"

"No," shouted the varlet, still writhing in pain, "there be better ears nor mine in the kitchen, thee'st better call, may be, on thay.”

"There may be better ears than thine, man alive, but not longer. Come, the guests tarry for their horses, and the worshipful Master Rufo Mull is not one of your anycomeups, to be kept waiting by a saucy groom. What beautiful horses! why, I declare there an't any such to be seen in these parts, except in my lord's stable, or on the sign over the door at the inn at Thornbury." (Here Ingram growled something about spavins, ringbones, windgalls, blindness, and broken knees; nevertheless, the loquacious girl, heedless of the attempted interruption, pertinaciously continued): “And then their riders, why the master's face is as red and white as one of our own apples; and his gentleman in the kitchen talks as fast, and swears as much as any earl in Christendom; and his linen, why though this is a week day, 'tis finer than that which some one wears on a Sunday."

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Ah, Mistress Malapert, it be all vine in thy eyes; strangers do most in general bring zunny weather to thee; thee bee'st fond o' new comers, and thee dost come from the right place to like new

6

vaces, and get acquainted wi' 'em quickly. All the Maids in Wanswell may dance in an egg-shell,' as the saying be.”

Annette now reddened up upon this proverbial sarcasm on the characters of the fair inhabitants of her native village, and though she had been teazing him previously, she now threw a vast increase of bitterness into her manner.

"So, my lad of wax, thou hast taken it into thy wise head to be jealous and witty, hast thou? and thinkest to cut me with thy Simondshall news,* and low saws, which thou hast ever at thy tongue's end; but let me speak to thee in the words of the Widow's Proverb, which thou know'st as well as I do:

He that's cooled with an apple,
And heated with an egg'

"Watts! Watts! Watts!" shouted from the top of Master Mead's voice, here came in time to drown the conclusion of the sentence; but for all the close proximity of him, who now sought the stable,

i. e. a lie.-ED.