g. It
was nearly five o'clock in the afternoon, when drawing near another
cluster of labourers' huts, the child looked wistfully in each,
doubtful at which to ask for permission to rest awhile, and buy a
draught of milk.

It was not easy to determine, for she was timid and fearful of being
repulsed. Here was a crying child, and there a noisy wife. In this,
the people seemed too poor; in that, too many. At length she stopped
at one where the family were seated round the table--chiefly because
there was an old man sitting in a cushioned chair beside the hearth,
and she thought he was a grandfather and would feel for hers.

There were besides, the cottager and his wife, and three young sturdy
children, brown as berries. The request was no sooner preferred, than
granted. The eldest boy ran out to fetch some milk, the second dragged
two stools towards the door, and the youngest crept to his mother's
gown, and looked at the strangers from beneath his sunburnt hand.

'God save you, master,' said the old cottager in a thin piping voice;
'are you travelling far?'

'Yes, Sir, a long way'--replied the child; for her grandfather appealed
to her.

'From London?' inquired the old man.

The child said yes.

Ah! He had been in London many a time--used to go there often once,
with waggons. It was nigh two-and-thirty year since he had been there
last, and he did hear say there were great changes. Like enough! He
had changed, himself, since then. Two-and-thirty year was a long time
and eighty-four a great age, though there was some he had known that
had lived to very hard upon a hundred--and not so hearty as he,
neither--no, nothing like it.

'Sit thee down, master, in the elbow chair,' said the old man, knocking
his stick upon the brick floor, and trying to do so sharply. 'Take a
pinch out o' that box; I don't take much myself, for it comes dear, but
I find it wakes me up sometimes, and ye're but a boy to me. I should
have a son pretty nigh as old as you if he'd lived, but they listed him
for a so'ger--he come back home though, for all he had but one poor
leg. He always said he'd be buried near the sun-dial he used to climb
upon when he was a baby, did my poor boy, and his words come true--you
can see the place with your own eyes; we've kept the turf up, ever
since.'

He shook his head, and looking at his daughter with watery eyes, said
she needn't be afraid that he was going to talk about that, any more.
He di