s a member of the Cowfold Glee
Club, and sang alto. This was on the 25th May. Miriam being
accustomed to walk in the fields in the evening, and Mr. D. Farrow
being fully aware of her custom, he met her on the 26th and after some
preliminary skirmishing requested her to take him for better or for
worse. She was surprised, but did not say so, and asked time for
consideration. She did consider, but consideration availed nothing.
It is so seldom even at the most important moments that our faculties
are permitted fully to help us. There is no free space allowed, and we
are dragged hither and thither by a swarm of temporary impulses. The
result has to stand, fixed for ever, but the operative forces which
determine it are those of the moment, and not of eternity. Miriam,
moreover, just then lacked the strong instinct which mercifully for us
so often takes us in hand. She was not altogether unhappy, but dull
and careless as to what became of her. No oracle advised her. There
is now no pillar of cloud or of fire to guide mortals; the heavenly
apparition does not appear even in extremities; and consequently a week
afterwards she said yes, and six months afterwards she was Mrs. Farrow.

For some time the day went pleasantly enough. She had plenty to do as
mistress of the house, and in entertaining the new friends who came to
see her. After a while, when the novelty had worn off, the old
insuperable feeling of monotony returned, more particularly in the
evening. Mr. Farrow never went near a public-house, but he never
opened a book, and during the winter, when the garden was closed,
amused himself with an accordion, or in practising his part in a catch,
or in cutting with a penknife curious little wooden chairs and tables.
This mode of passing the time was entertaining enough to him, but not
so to Miriam, who was fatally deficient, as so many of her countrymen
and countrywomen are, in that lightness which distinguishes the French
or the Italians, and would have enabled her, had she been so
fortunately endowed with it, to sit by the fire and prattle innocently
to her husband, whatever he might be doing. When she came to her new
abode and was turning out the corners, she discovered upstairs in a
cupboard a number of brown-looking old books, which had not been
touched for many a long day. Amongst them were Rollin's Ancient
History, some of Swift's Works with pages torn out, doubtless those
which some impatiently clean cr