o lame to leave Larks' Hall, except in his old coach, and
while it yet wanted weeks to the softening, gladdening, overwhelming
bounty of the harvest-home.

Then occurred the most singular episodes of perverseness and reiterated
instances of inconsistency of which Granny had been found guilty in the
memory of man, either as heiress of Larks' Hall or as old madam of the
vicarage. At first she would not hear of Mistress Betty's departure, and
asked her to be her companion, during her son's absence, in his house of
Larks' Hall, where all at once she announced that she meant to take up
her temporary residence. She did not approve of its being committed
entirely to the supervision of Mrs. Prue, her satellite, the
schoolmaster's daughter who used so many long words in cataloguing her
preserves and was so trustworthy: Mrs. Prue would feel lonesome; Mrs.
Prue would take to gadding like the chits Prissy and Fiddy. No, she
would remove herself for a year, and carry over her old man Morris along
with her, and see that poor Rowley's goods were not wasted or his
curiosities lost while he chose to tarry abroad.

Master Rowland stared, but made no objection to this invasion; Mrs.
Betty, after much private rumination and great persuasion, consented to
the arrangement. Young madam was obliged to be ruefully acquiescent,
though secretly irate at so preposterous a scheme; the Vicar, good man,
to do him justice, was always ponderously anxious to abet his mother,
and had, besides, a sneaking kindness for Mistress Betty; the girls were
privately charmed, and saw no end to the new element of breadth,
brightness, and zest, in their little occupations and amusements.

When again, of a sudden, after the day was fixed for Master Rowland's
departure, and the whole family were assembled in the vicarage
parlour--old madam fell a-crying and complaining that they were taking
_her_ son away from her--robbing her of him: she would never live to set
eyes on him again--a poor old body of her years and trials would not
survive another flitting. _She_ had been fain to gratify some of his
wishes; but see if they would not destroy them both, mother and son, by
their stupid narrow-mindedness and obstinacy.

Such a thing had never happened before. Who had ever seen Granny
unreasonable and foolish? The Vicar slipped his hand to her wrist, in
expectation that he would detect signs of hay-fever, though it was a
full month too late for the complaint--there had be