ake him go." So she took a
large piece of yellow glazed calico intended for furniture lining, walked
up to school, and held it up to the little boy. She said she heard that
he would only go to the girls' school, and, since everybody went there in
petticoats, she had brought some stuff to make him a petticoat too! The
young man got up and walked straight off to the boys' school.

Here are some verses, written by Mrs. Yonge in 1838, on one of the sights
that met her eye in the old Churchyard:--

While on the ear the solemn note
Of prayer and praises heavenward float,
A butterfly with brilliant wings
A lesson full of meaning brings,
A sermon to the eye.

There on an infant's grave it stands,
For it hath burst the shroud's dull bands,
Its vile worm's body there is left,
Of gross earth's habits now bereft
It soars into the sky.

Thus when the grave her dead shall give
The little form below shall live,
Clothed in a robe of dazzling white
Shall spring aloft on wings of light,
To realms above shall fly!

Changes were setting in all this time. The rick-burnings, in which so
many foolish persons indulged, was going on in 1831 in many parts of
Hampshire. They were caused partly by dislike to the threshing machines
that were beginning to be used, and partly by the notion that such
disturbances would lead to the passing of the Reform Bill, which ignorant
men believed would give every poor man a fat pig in his stye. There was
no rick-burning here, though some of the villagers joined the bands of
men who wandered about the country demanding money and arms at the large
houses. But, happily, none of them were actually engaged in any
violence, and none of them swelled the calendar of the Special Assize
that took place at Winchester for the trial of the rioters.

One poor maid-servant in the parish, from the North of Hampshire, had,
however, two brothers, who were intelligent men of some education, and
who, having been ringleaders, were both sentenced to death. The sentence
was, however, commuted to transportation for life. At Sydney, being of a
very different class from the ordinary convict, they prospered greatly,
and their letters were very interesting. They were wonderful feats of
penmanship, for postage from Australia was ruinously expensive, and they
filled sheets of paper with writing that could hardly be read without a
microscope. If we h