lean pew-opener, "taking into reckoning there was a sight of pretty lasses at church;" but his eye ever returned to that jovial face and ample figure. "The fool was crazy;" so said the old dames and thought the young damsels. Baby Bess melted beneath the gaze. From that day she softened, looked bashful, and even blushed.

The village was in fits. By-and-by, Baby Bess and the young farmer were seen rambling through the woods and corn-fields, and threading lovers'-walks, she listening-he discoursing; she hanging her head in maiden modesty-he vainly seeking to commune with her downcast eyes. Old Hal, half blind and wholly deaf, saw little and heard less. How would he take it? Widow Measham, old Hal's near neighbour, was on this point "cruel anxious and cruel curious." She cherished a spite against old Hal: he had outbidden her for an orchard, and she now prayed that Baby Bess might run off and give him the heartache.

"The young scamp has a cast of that ugly cretur, long Tom Parkinson," observed the widow to her grand-niece.

"Oh! gran'aunt," cried the Mountain-daisy, looking up from her knitting, "Mr. Woodley is rather handsome—at least, some say so." "Hold your tongue, wench! Don't praise the men; it an't maidenly." Down went the blue eyes and the blushing face. never saw long Tom Parkinson; how do you know he wasn't hand

some?

"You

The Mountain-daisy listened eagerly, but with glance bent down. Lately adopted by her grandaunt, and come from a far shire, she was almost a stranger to the old dame's history.

"You were neighbours' children?" she timidly inquired.

"And own cousins likewise," answered the old woman,-" more than that, ought to have been man and wife, if kissing and courting have any meaning. Mind, lass! put no faith in men; never set your heart on 'em. They're fond of change, and love lucre more than woman. Long Tom Parkinson married a slut as had a fortune; so he thought-ha! ha! and broke faith with his old sweetheart as had not a sixpence so he thought-ha! ha! Look what fell of it. Bet Dingle's father failed, and went into Lancaster gaol; my mother's brother came home from Chany, and my mother's daughter got 3001. in Indy gold the day she married soft Ned Measham. And if truth's spoken, Long Tom Parkinson hadn't much quiet at his fireside. Bet Dingle had a shrew's tongue, and never spared it, or she's a slandered

woman."

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They had a son," innocently murmured the Mountain-daisy. "How do you know that, hussy?"

"I-I-only thought it, gran'-aunt," pleaded the Mountain-daisy, prying more closely into her knitting.

"You're not wrong, girl; they had a boy, a worthless blade, I'll be bound. I've never clapped my eyes on long Tom Parkinson but once these twenty years; that was the Martinmas before you came home to me. Long Tom put out his hand; I slapped it aside, bit my tongue, and gave him a look that an honest man might have shook under. So we parted, and with my will I'll never clap eyes on his graceless son. He should have no girl of mine, if he'd as many bright guineas to buy him a wife as there's ears of corn in yon field. But, heart alive! there's Baby Bess coming over the stile like a trooper : she 'll be here in a twinkling."

VOL. XXIV.

X

"Good evening, widow Measham; good evening, my pretty Nancy. It's hot yet, though the sun's down."" And Baby Bess threw herself into a chair, and untied the strings of her Dunstable with an impatient hand. The Mountain-daisy crimsoned as she spoke-why, was not apparent; but she was mightily confused, tangled her worsted, dropped her stitches, and in a trice lost a whole row by the needle slipping quietly out upon the carpet. The widow Measham's keen eyes were riveted upon the face of Baby Bess.

"You're tired, Miss MacMilligan, and fretted, or I'm no judge of the red spot on your brow."

"I'm both, widow," cried Baby Bess; and then, dropping her voice, "I ve a favour to ask and a secret to tell: come into the blue parlour." Sans cérémonie, the Baby moved off towards the room so dignified.

The Mountain-daisy turned red and pale, hot and cold, by fits, and her heart throbbed very wildly beneath the white kerchief.

"A favour and a secret!" chirped the widow, gaily. "Stay where you are, Nance; no need of young girls listening to what old women's called to counsel in-stay where you are:" and the door closed, and there in the bay-window, filled with balsam and lavender, and curtained with vine branches, Baby Bess unburthened her heart to her father's wilful neighbour, Mistress Measham.

"Thinking of marriage!" screamed the widow.

"It may be a weakness, widow, at my time of life."

"Tut, tut, Miss Bess! better late than never: Mr. MacMilligan may hold on a score o' years longer. I knew a man who stayed on hand to more than a hundred.

Baby Bess sighed and sobbed, and her colour came and went in a very pretty and particular manner, so thought Mrs. Measham ; but the breeze fluttered the vine boughs over the lattice, and the hues of the setting sun painted the sky so rosy red that appearances were, then and there, very deceiving.

"Pa will never consent," wailed Baby Bess.

"Pa!-good heart, how genteel!" thought widow Measham.

"To be sure he won't. Take my advice, Miss Bess, an old woman's ain't to be slighted;" here she stood on tiptoe, and whispered into Miss MacMilligan's ear.

"He's so handsome!" said the Baby, clasping her hands and looking up at the ceiling.

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Ay, ay-a likely young fellow enough, always puts me in mind o' that ugly cretur long Tom Parkinson. The hill-side farm is his,

ain't it?

"

"On lease," murmured Baby Bess.

"Ay, ay, on lease, to be sure; 't ain't worth buying out and out, I'm 'feared: no farmer, he, to take it," said she to herself. "Rich, I s'pose?"

"Poor," faltered the Baby.

"Hum!" said the confidante, "money 's money, now-a-days, Miss Bess; but many a poor man makes a good husband, and riches in a wife give her the upper hand."

"It's a foolish step," sighed Baby Bess, "and I a woman of fortyfive."

"Fiddle-de-dee!" remarked the dame; "years in a wife make a young man sober. Ned Measham was in his slobbering-bib when I was a bouncing lass of ten years old."

Baby Bess played for some seconds with the strings of her Dunstable. At last, putting her hand into the old dame's, "You 're a wise woman," said she, " and can see through a stone wall I'll take him." For better, for worse, Miss Bess, that 's it; do so, my dearee, and shew a spirit."

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"You must help me," whispered the Baby. The old woman started.

"I want to borrow-"

"Lor' bless 'ee! how can I do that?

"Not money, Miss Bess, I hope! Money's money, you know, and—” "I'm not short of it," said the Baby, chinking a well-filled purse; "I want to borrow"

"A wedding-gown?- ay, ay; I've a flowered chintz, trimmed with cherry and lined with brimstone-yellow-"

"Thank you. Tom Woodley fancies me in my pea-jacket."

"The Lord love us! Well, well! what is it you want to borrow?" "A bridesmaid!" answered the Baby. The words were heard in the next room, and Nancy Willmore blushed all over and let fall her knitting.

"Tut, lass! is that all?" said the widow; "my niece shall go with you. She's got a beautiful cambric with pink ribbons; and, only folk might fancy she was the bride, you couldn't do better than take ber."

"I will!" cried the Baby; "she'll look like a bride, I'm certain." "More than yourself, Miss Bess, I'm 'feared; and, heark 'ee, love! my Nance is reckoned a beauty-just the picture of what I was. Can you count on your young man ?—men's minds run upon change. Long Tom Parkinson-ugly cretur!-left me to marry Bet Dingle."

"Tom Woodley will never change," sighed the Baby, looking into the glass and simpering.

"Well, Miss Bess, I'm glad to hear it, and my girl shall go with you."

"To-night," said the Baby. The cat, or something, started in the off parlour, and threw down a flower-stand.

"Lord 'a-mussy, to-night!—that is short warning."

"To-night," coolly replied the Baby; "the banns have been published three times. All is ready and settled: the wedding must be to-morrow. There is many a slip between the cup and the lip, Mrs. Measham; and if we stand shilly-shally any longer-"

"Who can tell what may happen? ay, ay. Well, to be sure!who'd have thought of old Bess-" The dame pulled up very short; to think aloud in the bride's presence was somewhat ticklish.

To be brief: at dusk that evening a covered spring-cart, drawn by a prancing grey that champed the bit and pawed up the green turf, stood under the holly-hedge of widow Measham's garden. A strapping young fellow stood at the horse's head; his heart throbbed and his cheek burned. "So-ho, so-ho!" said he, and he patted the creature's nose, and then anxiously looked around. Old Hal was still up, his candle was moving about his chamber; would the old fellow never put on his nightcap?-would the bride with the heavy purse never come forth? Hark! the cottage door opens, and the widow, with the bride and bridesmaid, hastens down the path. Old Hal MacMilligan's candle still twinkled through the trees. " 'Quick, quick!" said the Baby; but the Mountain-daisy threw her arms round her grand-aunt's neck, and burst into tears.

"Good heart!" cried the old lady, "what's the wench about? one would think she was a-going to be married too."

The prancing grey neighed and kicked up the gravel. "So-ho, soho!' said the young man, and he beckoned eagerly.

"Quick, quick!" said Baby Bess, "my father's moving towards

the window."

"Back to-morrow!" cried young Woodley, leaping into the spring

cart.

"Back on Thursday!" cried Baby Bess, with a burst of laughter, or something like it.

"Ay, ay! they may laugh that win," cackled the old dame, leaning forward on her crutch stick to peer through the gloom; "matrimony with an old woman is no joke, young greenhorn.

For May and December can never ag-r-e-e-e!'"'

"Good-bye, dear gran'-aunt,-good-bye!" came floating on the air, like an angel's whisper. It was the farewell of the Mountain-daisy. "A sweet lass,-a sweet lass!" chirped the dame," and as like me at eighteen-lud, me! how like."

The next day the village was all a-foot, and news went that old Hal sat in his arm-chair rehearsing his sea-oaths with supernatural nerve. Baby Bess had run off, and Tom Woodley's farm on the far hill side was "to be let, with immediate possession," so signified a painted board on the top of a long pole that at day-dawn greeted the eyes of the villagers.

"Thinks of taking up with the old man," chuckled Mrs. Measham ; "there's two words to that, or I'm no prophet." And the old lady put on her black mode cardinal, and away she went through the croft to Hal MacMilligan. The old gentleman stopped cursing when the widow, making an ancient obeisance, stood on the threshold.

"Bad news, I hear, Mr. MacMilligan."

"Pretty well, mistress. Sit down, old lass. How goes? s?-how goes?"

"Many thanks, Mr. MacMilligan. I hear the blight's took the apples in your orchard as you and I had some words about."

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Ay, ay, old lass. All right, all right; not a better pennyworth in the parish."

"Hum!" said the old lady, with a wrathful recollection that the choicest pippins in all the shire had slipped through her fingers. "Ha! some as know the yield say the contrary; and I was thinking what a providence it was that a lone widow, like myself, hadn't to put up with the loss. Miss Bess is off, I hear !"

"Ay, ay, mistress!-a great comfort."

The old dame, acid as the apples, now hobbled on her crutch-stick, and putting her mouth close to his ear, screamed out:

"He's a beggar; but keep up your spirits,—she'll come home on her bended knees yet, a silly hussy!"

66

Ay, ay, mistress," quoth the incorrigible old man, knitting his brows, and looking hard at the dame; "it's a sudden squall. Never heed; I've seen worse weather, and stowed my grog for all that. How's pretty Nancy?"

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Pretty Nancy hark to the old fool!" cackled the dame. "Listen, Mr. MacMilligan; there's none so deaf as them that won't hear. Tom Woodley's flitted from the hill-side farm, and run off

with Baby Bess. That's enough to give you your hearing again, I

reckon."

The shrillest sound in nature was the widow Measham's voice as she shrieked the news into old Hal's ear.

Scarcely had the widow made the communication, when a prancing grey was pulled up in style, a cart stopped, and Baby Bess flung down the reins, and jumped out.

"With your leave," and putting aside the bridegroom, she caught the Mountain-daisy in her arms, kissed her heartily, and led her up to the door. Never was there such a jolly, self-possessed, confident, illdressed bride-never so downcast, troubled, and timid a bridesmaid. "Heyday! here's a kettle of fish," quavered the old dame; "I never thought of Baby Bess being

"Bridesmaid to pretty Nancy! Widow Measham, forgive me! forgive your grand-niece!

"Ö grand-aunt! grand-aunt!" sobbed the Mountain-daisy, clasping her hands.

Nancy Willmore!" screamed the old dame.

"Mrs. Tom Parkinson, junior," said the bridegroom, advancing blithely, yet with some slight confusion, and hat in hand.

"Mrs. Tom Parkinson!" shrieked old Mistress Measham, dropping

into a chair.

"The same, cousin Madge," cried a tall, hale, handsome old man, walking straight into the parlour, and up to the old woman's chair. "Young Tom Parkinson will have houses, and lands, and a heavy purse, when that ugly cretur, old Tom Parkinson, is gone."

It was a wicked, wily old man, that long Tom Parkinson; and "married with Bet Dingle!"

Ugly cretur!" gasped the widow, and she motioned him away with her hand.

"Come, come, Madge!" persisted her faithless suitor, “thou hast a tender heart as well as a witching face. Sisters' children, Madge! own cousins, lass!" and he stretched out his hand.

"Don't be cross-grained, neighbour," cried old Hal, blowing his nose sturdily; "give him your fin and have done with it."

"Ugly cre'tur'!" groaned the old woman, and she clenched her hand and snatched it away,

"A sad dog, Madge, and never worth the clever, handsome, sprightly girl that turned him off to marry Ned Measham. Ah! Madge, thou hast much to answer for." The sly old fox heaved a dreary sigh, and clapt his hand on his waistcoat. It was well-timed, and the look and previous words mollified the old woman amazingly.

"Money's money," sighed she, and she glanced at her tearful, blushing grandniece, and at the tall, straight, well-looking young fellow, that dropped on one knee before her, and carried her hand to his lips.

"Now do, dear Widow Measham," cried Baby Bess, in her cordial, coaxing tones; "do forgive and forget. Tom Woodley had an old claim on the heart of our pretty Nancy: they loved long before the Mountain-daisy came to flourish in our hum-drum village."

"

"That ugly cretur, long Tom Parkinson; excuse me, Miss Bess, and push on." Long Tom winked wickedly, and Baby Bess proceeded.

"I am to blame for all that followed- I planned the wedding,