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  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

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    It Is Most Provable That The Reader Has ...

    After refolding * tiie epistle and relighting * his pipe , his first ' - re * of flection him was and , how his _strangle second related that so fine to the a lad expediency y should corne of " to bring ask ing favors 1 up

    ; girls according to what they had to look to . " Sundry others followed , but are far too commonplace and vulgar for general note . As

    regarded the petition itself he decided to grant it , but accompanying the favor was a recommendation that Ms niece should try to " get in

    usher to some family , " or in some other way set about getting a living . He " would not say but what he would remember her now

    and then if she did her best , " but failing in that , she must expect no more helfromhim ; he had his own son to look to , and it was

    his duty to think p of , him . Miss Rayner was exceedingly indignant at the terms of this communicationnor did she once thank her

    , benefactor in her heart . Like similar characters in similar circumstances she appeared to consider everybody as responsible for her

    misfortunes , and deemed that no amount of favor could exceed -what was their bounden duty .

    Necessity pressed and she made a feeble effort to procure an engagement as governess , as , and I note this as being something * new

    under the sun , more than one opportunity presented itself . The first party on whom she waited was a lady quite dwarfish in stature , but

    in other respects a female Falstaff . This lady stated broadly to the indignant applicantthat she " did not wish a tole person , " she would

    , prefer a " shoter person . " The second situation came quite within reachbut then the family was not genteel and the children had red

    hair and , freckled faces . From very disgust she was compelled to decline .

    Again she appealed to her uncle , but he was no longer at command . He had said " Nay . " Mr . Cheever was not a man to send

    money he knew not whither in that way , and he lit his pipe with her urgent letters in the coolest manner possible . He had been

    good enough to intimate to his niece that if she chose to spend the winter at Benniworthand " fare in a plain way , she was welcome . "

    , But winter in a country village ! It was impossible . We judge by comparison ; and Miss Uayner had been comparing

    winter in a desolate farm house , and winter as she had been used to waste it in famous London town . But by and by the comparison

    varied to " no dinner and no shelter , " and the accommodation , she had despised : it was not very surprising * therefore that she finally

    presented herself at the threshold of the great thatched house . It was the dreariest day imaginable . The wind wailed testily

    among the trees , whose shivering branches stretched after the hosts of withered leaves which were every moment being swept away .

    The sky was leaden and gloomy , and there was nothing but the ceaseless patter of rainwhich also dripped yellow and dull from the

    broad eaves of thatch . , But it grew calmer towards evening : the murky clouds were being slowly shelvedand the moon and the stars

    , peeped now and then from between some convenient _breaks by way :

    of assurance .

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    406 A TILLAGE SKETCH ,

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Feb. 1, 1860, page 406, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01021860/page/46/