, the happy couple. Ah,
well, they were all happy couples in those days!

At Larks' Hall Mistress Betty bloomed during many a year; for a fine
woman knows no decay; she only passes from one stage of beauty and
excellence to another, wearing, as her rightful possession, all
hearts--her sons', as their father's before them. And Master Rowland no
longer sat lonely in his hall, in the frosty winter dusk or under the
usher-oak in the balmy summer twilight, but walked through life briskly
and bravely, with a perfect mate; whom he had not failed to recognize as
a real diamond among the bits of glass before the footlights--a diamond
which his old mother had consented to set for him.

Our squire and Lady Betty are relics of a former generation. We have
squires as many by thousands, as accomplished by tens of thousands; but
the inimitable union of simplicity and refinement, downrightness and
dignity, disappeared with the last faint reflection of Sir Roger de
Coverley. And charming Lady Betty departed also with early hours,
pillions, and cosmetics--that blending of nature and art, knowledge of
the corrupt world and abiding true-heartedness, which then existed--a
sort of marvel.

A CAST IN THE WAGGON.

I.--DULCIE'S START IN THE WAGGON FOR HER COMPANY.

Old and young were clamouring hoarsely and shrilly by daybreak one
September morning round a little girl, one of a cloth-worker's numerous
family. She had been rather a tender lass, and change of air was thought
good for her full growth. Though she was still small, she was close on
her one-and-twentieth year, and her friends held it was high time for
her to see the world. It was seeing the world to go with a late mayor's
daughter, an orphan and an heiress, who had been visiting the
cloth-worker's family, and would have Dulcie to live with her for awhile
in a neighbouring town as a friend and companion.

Mind those worthy warm-hearted relatives of Dulcie's had no idea of her
returning to her parents' nest in a hurry, though the two towns, Fairfax
and Redwater, were within a day's journey by waggon of each other.
Dulcie would see the world, and stay in her new abode in the next
country town, or lose her character for dignity and spirit; and girls
were fain to be thought discreet and decided a hundred years ago or so.
She might as lief marry as not, when she was away on her travels. Girls
married then with far less trouble than they accomplished such a
journey. They ran d