other end of the hall. By the way,
are you sure you like your bedroom? It is a long way off from any one
else, you know." "Like it? To be sure I do; the further off from you,
my dear, the better. There, don't think it necessary to beat me:
accept my apologies. But what are sawflies? will they eat my coats? If
not, they may have the room to themselves for what I care. We are not
likely to be using it." "No, of course not. Well, what she calls
sawflies are those reddish things like a daddy-longlegs, but
smaller,[1] and there are a great many of them perching about that
room, certainly. I don't like them, but I don't fancy they are
mischievous." "There seem to be several things you don't like this
fine morning," said her uncle, as he closed the door. Miss Oldys
remained in her chair looking at the tablet, which she was holding in
the palm of her hand. The smile that had been on her face faded slowly
from it and gave place to an expression of curiosity and almost
strained attention. Her reverie was broken by the entrance of Mrs.
Maple, and her invariable opening, "Oh, Miss, could I speak to you a
minute?"

A letter from Miss Oldys to a friend in Lichfield, begun a day or two
before, is the next source for this story. It is not devoid of traces
of the influence of that leader of female thought in her day, Miss
Anna Seward, known to some as the Swan of Lichfield.

"My sweetest Emily will be rejoiced to hear that we are at length--my
beloved uncle and myself--settled in the house that now calls us
master--nay, master and mistress--as in past ages it has called so
many others. Here we taste a mingling of modern elegance and hoary
antiquity, such as has never ere now graced life for either of us. The
town, small as it is, affords us some reflection, pale indeed, but
veritable, of the sweets of polite intercourse: the adjacent country
numbers amid the occupants of its scattered mansions some whose polish
is annually refreshed by contact with metropolitan splendour, and
others whose robust and homely geniality is, at times, and by way of
contrast, not less cheering and acceptable. Tired of the parlours and
drawing-rooms of our friends, we have ready to hand a refuge from the
clash of wits or the small talk of the day amid the solemn beauties of
our venerable minster, whose silvern chimes daily 'knoll us to
prayer,' and in the shady walks of whose tranquil graveyard we muse
with softened heart, and ever and anon with moistened e