e, I ran out as pleased as could
be; but I see in a moment he was sadly cast down. 'Why, Tom, my lad,'
says I, 'what is it?' 'Why, mother,' says he, 'she'd understood mine was
a harable; _and she will not marry to a dairy_.'"

From Cheshire to East Anglia is a far cry, but let me give one more
lesson in the Art of Putting Things, derived from that delightful writer
Dr. Jessopp. In one of his studies of rural life the Doctor tells, in
his own inimitable style, a story of which the moral is the necessity of
using plain words when you are preaching to the poor. The story runs
that in the parish where he served his first curacy there was an old
farmer on whom had fallen all the troubles of Job--loss of stock, loss
of capital, eviction from his holding, the death of his wife, and the
failure of his own health. The well-meaning young curate, though full of
compassion, could find no more novel topic of consolation than to say
that all these trials were the dispensations of Providence. On this the
poor old victim brightened up and said with a cheerful smile, "Ah yes,
sir; I know that right enough. That old Providence has been against me
all along; but I reckon _there's One above_ that will put a stopper on
him if he goes too far." Evidently, as Dr. Jessopp observes,
"Providence" was to the good old man a learned synonym for the devil.

XXXI.

CHILDREN.

The humours of childhood include in rich abundance both Things which
would have been better left unsaid, and Things which might have been
expressed differently. But just now they lack their sacred bard. There
is no one to observe and chronicle them. It is a pity, for the "heart
that watches and receives" will often find in the pleasantries of
childhood a good deal that deserves perpetuation.

The children of fiction are a mixed company, some lifelike and some
eminently the reverse. In _Joan_ Miss Rhoda Broughton drew with
unequalled skill a family of odious children. Henry Kingsley look a more
genial view of his subject, and sketched some pleasant children in
_Austin Elliot_, and some delightful ones in the last chapter of
_Ravenshoe_. The "Last of the Neros" in _Barchester Towers_ is admirably
drawn, and all elderly bachelors must have sympathized with good Mr.
Thorne when, by way of making himself agreeable to the mother, Signora
Vesey-Neroni, he took the child upon his knee, jumped her up and down,
saying, "Diddle, diddle, diddle," and was rewarded with, "I don't w