pose quite as well. Two or three farm houses, and eight or ten labourers' cottages, made up the sum total of the habitations which composed the village of Barnel.
It was early in October when I first visited this rural district, and I was highly delighted with the picturesque beauty of its scenery, checkered with all the variety of colour which autumn, in this country, never fails to bring. It was at a cottage of the bettermost order that I took up my temporary residence—or rather a small farm-house. The inmates consisted of a man, his wife, two children and two servants. The master, whose name was John Seedman, was a plain, good sort of person, very kindhearted, possessing such education as the sons of farmers in that neighbourhood generally received, at the only school of which the village could boast, conducted by the parish clerk; that is to say, he could read a little—write a little—and knew a little of arithmetic. His wife, whom he married young, was the daughter of a saddler in the nearest town, who had saved a little money, and given his daughter a tolerable education. My host and hostess, therefore, were people of good repute and some standing in the village. Their house was better furnished than those of some of their neighbours, and their style of living was somewhat superior. The son was a tall, rawboned youth of eighteen, but the daughter was really a loveable girl. She had been brought up in a boarding school in the market town of which her mother was a native, and had learned such things as girls generally do learn at country boarding schools of the middle class; but what was deficient in education was made up in natural refinement and sweetness of disposition.
