"What could Mr. Doubleday mean by that ?" was at length her indignant exclamation.

Nobody spoke.

"I am sure," continued the crest-fallen Mrs. Campaspe, with an attempt at a scornful giggle, "I am sure if any body understood him, I would be glad to know what he did mean."

"Well now, I can tell you;" said the same simple old lady in the corner, who had let out the secret of Mrs. Nippers' morning walks. "Some folks calls that sponging, when you go about getting your dinner here and your tea there, and sich like; as you know you and Meesy there does. That was what he meant I guess." And the old lady quietly put up her knitting, and prepared to go home.

There have been times when I have thought that almost any degree of courtly duplicity would be preferable to the brusquerie of some of my neighbours : but on this occasion I gave all due credit to a simple and downright way of stating the plain truth. The scrofulous hint probably brightened my mental and moral vision somewhat.

Mrs. Nippers' claret cloak and green bonnet, and Miss Clinch's ditto ditto, were in earnest requisition, and I do not think either of them spent a day out that week.

20*

CHAPTER XXXV.

We will rear new homes under trees which glow
As if gems were the fruitage of every bough;
O'er our white walls we will train the vine
And sit in its shadow at day's decline.

MRS. HEMANS.

Alas! they had been friends in youth
But whispering tongues will poison truth.

MANY English families reside in our vicinity, some of them well calculated to make their way any where; close, penurious, grasping and indefatigable; denying themselves all but the necessaries of life, in order to add to their lands, and make the most of their crops; and somewhat apt in bargaining to overreach even the wary pumpkin-eaters, their neighbours: others to whom all these things seem so foreign and so unsuitable, that one cannot but wonder that the vagaries of fortune should have sent them into so uncongenial an atmosphere. The class last mentioned, generally live retired, and show little inclination to mingle with their rustic neighbours; and of course, they become at once the objects of suspicion and dislike. The principle of "let-a-be for let-a-be" holds not with us. Whoever ex

hibits any desire for privacy is set down as "praoud," or something worse; no matter how inoffensive, or even how benevolent he may be; and of all places in the world in which to live on the shady side of public opinion, an American back-woods settlement is the very worst, as many of these unfortunately mistaken emigrants have been made to feel.

The better classes of English settlers seem to have left their own country with high-wrought notions of the unbounded freedom to be enjoyed in this; and it is with feelings of angry surprise that they learn after a short residence here, that this very universal freedom abridges their own liberty to do as they please in their individual capacity; that the absolute democracy which prevails in country places, imposes as heavy restraints upon one's free-will in some particulars, as do the over-bearing pride and haughty distinctions of the old world in others; and after one has changed one's whole plan of life, and crossed the wide ocean to find a Utopia, the waking to reality is attended with feelings of no slight bitterness. In some instances within my knowledge these feelings of disappointment have been so severe as to neutralize all that was good in American life, and to produce a degree of sour discontent which increased every real evil and went far towards alienating the few who were kindly inclined toward the stranger.

I ever regarded our very intelligent neighbours the Brents, as belonging to the class who have emigrated by mistake, they seemed so well-bred, so well-off, so amiable and so unhappy. They lived a few miles from us, and we saw them but seldom, far less frequently

than I could have wished, for there were few whose society was so agreeable. Mr. Brent was a hand. some, noble-looking man of thirty or perhaps a little more, well-read, and passionately fond of literary pursuits; no more fit to be a Michigan farmer than to figure as President of the Texan republic; and his wife a gentle and timid woman, very dependent and very lovely, was as ill fitted to bear the household part of a farmer's lot. But all this seemed well-arranged, for the farm was managed "on shares" by a stout husbandman and his family, tolerably honest and trustworthy people as times go; and Mr. Brent and his pale and deli. cate Catherine disposed of their hours as they thought proper; not however without many secret and some very audible surmises and wonderings on the part of their immediate neighbours, which were duly report ed, devoutly believed, and invariably added to, in the course of their diffusion in Montacute.

I might repeat what I heard at a Montacute teaparty; I might give Mrs. Flyter's views of the proba ble duration of Mr. Brent's means of living on the occasion of having learned from Mrs. Holbrook that Mrs. Brent did not see to the butter-making, and had never milked a cow in her life. I might repeat Mrs. Allerton's estimate of the cost of Mrs. Brent's dress at meeting on a certain Sunday. But I shall only tell what Mrs. Nippers said, for I consider her as unim. peachable authority in such matters. Her decided and solemn assertion was that Mrs. Brent was jealous. "Jealous of whom?"

"But it is to be supposed that there is somebody else concerned."

"Ah yes! but I do n't know. Mrs. Barton did n't know."

"Oh, it was Mrs. Barton who told you then."

Mrs. Nippers had declined giving her authority, and Mrs. Barton was the wife of Mr. Brent's farmer. So she coloured a little, and said that she did not wish it repeated, as Mrs. Barton had mentioned it to her in confidence. But since it had come out by mere chance, she did n't know but she might just as well tell that Mrs. Barton was sure that Mrs. Brent was jealous of somebody in England, or somebody that was dead, she did n't know which. She hoped that none of the ladies would mention it.

There were some fourteen or so in company, and they had not yet had tea. After tea the poor Brents were completely "used up," to borrow a phrase much in vogue with us, and the next day I was not much surprised at being asked by a lady who made me a three hours' morning call beginning at nine o'clock, if I had heard that Mr. and Mrs. Brent were going to "part."

I declared my ignorance of any thing so terrible, and tried to trace back the news, but it must have passed through several able hands before it came to me.

We rode over to see the Brents that afternoon, found them as usual, save that Mrs. Brent seemed wasting, but she always declared herself quite well; and her husband, whose manner towards her is that of great tenderness, yet not exactly that of husbands in general, a little constrained, was reading aloud to her as she lay on the sofa. They seemed pleased to see us, and pro