the parish; and that if she ever
thinks her children want a flogging she must bring them to me, and, if
I think they deserve it, I'll give it them better than she can.' So
Phillis led the children towards the dairy, somewhere in the back yard,
and I followed the minister in through the 'curate' into the
house-place. 'Their mother,' said he, 'is a bit of a vixen, and apt to
punish her children without rhyme or reason. I try to keep the parish
rod as well as the parish bull.'

He sate down in the three-cornered chair by the fire-side, and looked
around the empty room.

'Where's the missus?' said he to himself. But she was there home--by a
look, by a touch, nothing more--as soon as she in a minute; it was her
regular plan to give him his welcome could after his return, and he had
missed her now. Regardless of my presence, he went over the day's
doings to her; and then, getting up, he said he must go and make
himself 'reverend', and that then we would have a cup of tea in the
parlour. The parlour was a large room with two casemented windows on
the other side of the broad flagged passage leading from the
rector-door to the wide staircase, with its shallow, polished oaken
steps, on which no carpet was ever laid. The parlour-floor was covered
in the middle by a home-made carpeting of needlework and list. One or
two quaint family pictures of the Holman family hung round the walls;
the fire-grate and irons were much ornamented with brass; and on a
table against the wall between the windows, a great beau-pot of flowers
was placed upon the folio volumes of Matthew Henry's Bible. It was a
compliment to me to use this room, and I tried to be grateful for it;
but we never had our meals there after that first day, and I was glad
of it; for the large house-place, living room, dining-room, whichever
you might like to call it, was twice as comfortable and cheerful. There
was a rug in front of the great large fire-place, and an oven by the
grate, and a crook, with the kettle hanging from it, over the bright
wood-fire; everything that ought to be black and Polished in that room
was black and Polished; and the flags, and window-curtains, and such
things as were to be white and clean, were just spotless in their
purity. Opposite to the fire-place, extending the whole length of the
room, was an oaken shovel-board, with the right incline for a skilful
player to send the weights into the prescribed space. There were
baskets of white work abou