if she did not, he might take it back again. She
even hoped to pay for it by and by, by instalments, but that she would
not promise!' and, partly amused, partly interested by the child's
earnestness, the wealthy yeoman gave her, not as a purchase, but as a
present, a very fine young Alderney. She then went to the lord of the
manor, and, with equal knowledge of character, begged his permission
to keep her cow on the Shaw common. 'Farmer Oakley had given her a fine
Alderney, and she would be bound to pay the rent, and keep her father
off the parish, if he would only let it graze on the waste;' and he too,
half from real good nature--half, not to be outdone in liberality by his
tenant, not only granted the requested permission, but reduced the rent
so much, that the produce of the vine seldom fails to satisfy their kind
landlord.

Now Hannah showed great judgment in setting up as a dairy-woman. She
could not have chosen an occupation more completely unoccupied, or more
loudly called for. One of the most provoking of the petty difficulties
which beset people with a small establishment in this neighbourhood,
is the trouble, almost the impossibility, of procuring the pastoral
luxuries of milk, eggs, and butter, which rank, unfortunately, amongst
the indispensable necessaries of housekeeping. To your thoroughbred
Londoner, who, whilst grumbling over his own breakfast, is apt to fancy
that thick cream, and fresh butter, and new-laid eggs, grow, so to say,
in the country--form an actual part of its natural produce--it may be
some comfort to learn, that in this great grazing district, however the
calves and the farmers may be the better for cows, nobody else is;
that farmers' wives have ceased to keep poultry; and that we unlucky
villagers sit down often to our first meal in a state of destitution,
which may well make him content with his thin milk and his Cambridge
butter, when compared to our imputed pastoralities.

Hannah's Alderney restored us to one rural privilege. Never was so
cleanly a little milkmaid. She changed away some of the cottage finery,
which, in his prosperous days, poor Jack had pleased himself with
bringing home, the china tea-service, the gilded mugs, and the painted
waiters, for the useful utensils of the dairy, and speedily established
a regular and gainful trade in milk, eggs, butter, honey, and
poultry--for poultry they had always kept.

Her domestic management prospered equally. Her father, who retain