woman, such as in these parts a man may
find with the profusion of Wessex blackberries. An empty chair between
them spoke with all an empty chair's eloquence of an absent inmate.
A butter-churn stood in a corner next to an ancient clock that had
ticked away the mortality of many a past and gone PEEP.

CHAPTER II.

[Illustration: {Bonduca Peep.}]

"Where be BONDUCA?" said ABRAHAM, shifting his body upon his chair
so as to bring his wife's faded tints better into view. "Like enough
she's met in with that slack-twisted 'hor's bird of a feller, TOM
TATTERS. And she'll let the sheep draggle round the hills. My soul,
but I'd like to baste 'en for a poor slammick of a chap."

Mrs. PEEP smiled feebly. She had had her troubles. Like other
realities, they took on themselves a metaphysical mantle of
infallibility, sinking to minor cerebral phenomena for quiet
contemplation. She had no notion how they did this. And, it must
be added, that they might, had they felt so disposed, have stood as
pressing concretions which chafe body and soul--a most disagreeable
state of things, peculiar to the miserably passive existence of a
Wessex peasant woman.

"BONDUCA went early," she said, adding, with a weak irrelevance.
"She mid 'a' had her pick to-day. A mampus o' men have bin after
her--fourteen of 'em, all the best lads round about, some of 'em wi'
bags and bags of gold to their names, and all wanting BONDUCA to be
their lawful wedded wife."

ABRAHAM shifted again. A cunning smile played about the hard lines
of his face. "POLLY," he said, bringing his closed fist down upon his
knee with a sudden violence, "you pick the richest, and let him carry
BONDUCA to the pa'son. Good looks wear badly, and good characters be
of no account; but the gold's the thing for us. Why," he continued,
meditatively, "the old house could be new thatched, and you and me
live like Lords and Ladies, away from the mulch o' the barton, all in
silks and satins, wi' golden crowns to our heads, and silver buckles
to our feet."

POLLY nodded eagerly. She was a Wessex woman born, and thoroughly
understood the pure and unsophisticated nature of the Wessex peasant.

CHAPTER III.

Meanwhile BONDUCA PEEP--little BO PEEP was the name by which the
country-folk all knew her--sat dreaming upon the hill-side, looking
out with a premature woman's eyes upon the rich valley that stretched
away to the horizon. The rest of the landscape was made up of
agricultural scenes and