r Alderney; nay, even
Ned Miles, the keeper, her next neighbour, who had whilom held entire
sway over the Shaw common, as well as its coppices, grumbled as much
as so good-natured and genial a person could grumble, when he found a
little girl sharing his dominion, a cow grazing beside his pony, and
vulgar cocks and hens hovering around the buck-wheat destined to feed
his noble pheasants. Nobody that had been accustomed to see that paragon
of keepers, so tall and manly, and pleasant looking, with his merry eye,
and his knowing smile, striding gaily along, in his green coat, and his
gold-laced hat, with Neptune, his noble Newfoundland dog (a retriever is
the sporting word), and his beautiful spaniel Flirt at his heels, could
conceive how askew he looked, when he first found Hannah and Watch
holding equal reign over his old territory, the Shaw common.

Yes! Hannah hath had her enemies; but they are passing away. The old
woman at the lodge is dead, poor creature; and Betty Barnes, having
herself taken to tippling, has lost the few friends she once possessed,
and looks, luckless wretch, as if she would soon die too!--and the
keeper?--why, he is not dead, or like to die; but the change that has
taken place there is the most astonishing of all--except, perhaps, the
change in Hannah herself.

Few damsels of twelve years old, generally a very pretty age, were less
pretty than Hannah Bint. Short and stunted in her figure, thin in face,
sharp in feature, with a muddled complexion, wild sunburnt hair,
and eyes whose very brightness had in them something startling,
over-informed, super-subtle, too clever for her age,--at twelve years
old she had quite the air of a little old fairy. Now, at seventeen,
matters are mended. Her complexion has cleared; her countenance has
developed itself; her figure has shot up into height and lightness, and
a sort of rustic grace; her bright, acute eye is softened and sweetened
by the womanly wish to please; her hair is trimmed, and curled and
brushed, with exquisite neatness; and her whole dress arranged with that
nice attention to the becoming, the suitable both in form and texture,
which would be called the highest degree of coquetry, if it did
not deserve the better name of propriety. Never was such a
transmogrification beheld. The lass is really pretty, and Ned Miles has
discovered that she is so. There he stands, the rogue, close at her side
(for he hath joined her whilst we have been telling he