came close to her, and caught a crum which she was flinging to him before it reached the ground, "see how saucy! O pretty, pretty Bobbies! I do love them so."

"We all like the poor confiding creatures who pay us the compliment of trusting so entirely in our kindness and good faith, I believe," said Arthur, half laughing at her eagerness; "and after all, Edward," added he, as the two boys, bat in hand, marched off to cricket, "after all, you must confess that our method of taming robins is better than yours, and that one bird who comes to you at liberty, of his own free will, is worth a dozen kidnapped in the nest, luckless wretches, and mewed up in a cage.'

Edward confessed that his cousin was right, and never took a bird's nest again.

EARLY RECOLLECTIONS.

THE GENERAL AND HIS LADY.

ALL persons of a certain standing in life, remember for certainly nothing was ever more unforgetable-the great scarlet fever of England, when volunteering was the order of the day; when you could scarcely meet with a man who was not, under some denomination or other, a soldier; when a civil topic could hardly find a listener; when little boys played at reviewing, and young ladies learned the sword exercise. It was a fine ebullition of national feeling-of loyalty and of public spirit, and cannot be looked back to without respect; but, at the moment, the strange contrasts the perpetual discrepancies-and the comical self-importance which it produced and exhibited, were infinitely diverting. I was a very little girl at the time; but even now I cannot recollect without laughing, the appearance of a cornet of yeomanry cavalry, who might have played Falstaff without stuffing, and was obliged to complete his military decorations by wearing (and how he contrived to keep up the slippery girdle, one can hardly imagine) three silken sashes sewed into one! To this day, too, I remember the chuckling delight with which a worthy linen-draper of my acquaintance heard himself addressed as Captain, whilst measuring a yard of ribbon; pretending to make light of the appellation, but evidently as proud of his title as a newly dubbed knight, or a peer of the last edition; and I never shall forget the astonishment with which I beheld a field-officer, in his double epaulettes, advance obsequiously to the carriage-door, to receive an order for five shillings worth of stationery! The prevailing spirit fell in exactly with the national character, loyal, patriotic, sturdy, and independent; very

and not indifferent to personal distinction; the whole population borne along by one laudable and powerful impulse, and yet each man preserving, in the midst of that great leveller, military discipline, his individual peculiarities and blameless self-importance. It was a most amusing era!

In large country towns, especially where they mustered two or three different corps, and the powerful stimulant of emulation was superadded to the original martial fury, the goings on of these Captain Pattypans furnished a standing comedy, particularly when aided by the solemn etiquette and strong military spirit of their wives, who took precedence according to the rank of their husbands, from the colonel's lady down to the corporal's, and were as complete martialists, as proud of the services of their respective regiments, and as much impressed with the importance of fielddays and reviews, as if they had actually mounted the cockade and handled the firelock in their own proper persons. Foote's inimitable farce was more than realized; and the ridicules of that period have only escaped being perpetuated in a new "Mayor of Garrat," by the circumstance of the whole world, dramatists and all, being involved in them. "The lunacy was so ordinary, that the whippers were in arms too.”

That day is past. Even the yeomanry cavalry, that last lingering remnant of the volunteer system, whom I have been accustomed to see annually parade through the town of B., with my pleasant friend Captain M. at their head, that respectable body of which the band always appeared to me so much more numerous than the corps,-even that respectable body is dissolved; whilst the latest rag of the infantry service - the long-preserved uniform and cocked-hat of my old acquaintance, Dr. R., whilome physician to the B. Association, figured last summer as a scarecrow, stuffed with straw, and perched on a gate, an old gun tucked under its arm, to frighten the sparrows from his cherry-orchard! Except the real soldiers, and every now and then some dozen of fox-hunters at a hunt-ball, (whose usual dress-uniform, by the way, scarlet over black, makes them look just like a flight of ladybirds,) excepting these gallant sportsmen, and the real bona fide officers, one cannot now see a red coat for love or money. The glory of the volunteers is departed!

In the mean time I owe to them one of the pleasantest recollections of my early life.

It was towards the beginning of the last war, when the novelty and freshness of the volunteer spirit had somewhat subsided, and the government was beginning to organize a more regular defensive force, under the name of local militia, that our old friend Colonel Sanford was appointed, with the rank of

office, a station of no small importance in the country, every person, of the slightest gentility in the town and neighbourhood, the whole visiting population of these, in general, very distinct and separate societies, thought proper to wait upon Mrs. Sanford. Mrs. Sanford was the fashion of B., and of B. shire. "Not to know her, argued yourself unknown." All the town and all the county called, and all the town invited her to tea, and all the county requested her company to dinner; and she, puzzled, perplexed, and amazed, hardly knowing by sight one individual of her innumerable acquaintance; unable to distinguish between one person and another; often forgetting titles; never remembering names; and ignorant as an infant of artificial distinctions, made twenty blunders in an hour; and kept the poor General, as punctilious an observer of the duties of society as of the duties of the service, in a perpetual state of fidget and alarm. Her mistakes were past all count,-she mislaid invitations; forgot engagements; mismatched her company; gave the mayor of B. the precedence of the county member; and hath been heard to ask an old bachelor after his wife, and an old maid after her children. There was no end to Mrs. Sanford's blunders. The old Brigade-Major, a veteran of the General's own standing, lame of a leg, and with a prodigious scar across his forehead, was kept on the constant stump with explanatory messages and conciliatory embassies, and declared, that he underwent much harder duty in that service, than ever he had performed in his official capacity of drilling the awkward squad. The General, not content with dispatching his aide-de-camp, exhausted himself in elaborate apologies; but embassies, apologies and explanations were all unnecessary. Nobody could be angry with Mrs. Sanford. There was no resisting the charm of her blushing youthfulness; her pleading voice; her ready confession of error, and her evident sorrow for all her little sins, whether of ignorance or heedlessness; no withstanding her sweetness and simplicity. Even offended self-love, the hardest to appease of all the passions, yielded to the artlessness of Mrs. Sauford.

She, on her part, liked nothing so well as to steal away from her troublesome popularity, her visiters, and her fine clothes, to the ease and freedom of the country; to put on a white frock and straw-bonnet, and run about the woods and fields with some young female friend, primrosing or bird's-nesting, according to the season. I was her usual companion in these rambles, and enjoyed them, perhaps, as much as she did but in a far quieter way. Her animal spirits seemed inexhaustible; I never knew her weary; and strong, agile, and entirely devoid of bodily fear, the thought of danger never seemed to come across her. How she enjoyed spending a long day at our house! now bounding over a ditch, to gather

a tuft of wild flowers; now climbing a pollard, to look for a bird's nest; now driving through the lanes in a donkey-chaise; now galloping across the common on a pony; now feeding the chickens; now weeding the gravel walks; now making hay; and now reaping. These were her delights! All her pleasures were equally childish: she cherished abundance of pets, such as school-girls love; kept silk-worms, dormice, and canary birds; a parrot, a squirrel, and a monkey; three lapdogs, and a Persian cat; enjoyed a fair, and was enchanted with a pantomime; always supposing that her party did not consist of fine people or of strangers, but was composed of those to whom she was accustomed, and who were as well disposed to merriment and good-humour as herself.

With regard to accomplishments, she knew what was commonly taught in a country school above twenty years ago, and nothing more: played a little, sang a little, talked a little indifferent French; painted shells and roses, not particularly like nature, on cardracks and hand-screens; danced admirably; and was the best player at battledoor and shuttlecock, hunt-the-slipper and blind-man'sbuff, in the county. Nothing could exceed the glee with which, in any family where she was intimate, she would join the children in a game of romps, herself the gayest and happiest child of the party.

For cards she had no genius. Even the noise and nonsense of a round-table could not reconcile her to those bits of painted pasteboard; this was unlucky: it is true that the General, who played a good rubber, and looked upon it, next to a review or a battle, as the most serious business of life, and who had, moreover, a settled opinion that no woman had intellect enough to master the game, would hardly have wished to have been her partner at the whist-table; but he also loved a snug party at piquet, just to keep him awake after dinner, and would have liked exceedingly that Mrs. Sanford should have known enough of the rules to become a decent antagonist. He was not unreasonable in his expectations, he did not desire that she should play well enough to win. He only wanted her to understand sufficient of the game to lose in a creditable manner. But it would not do: she was unconquerably stupid; never dealt the right number of cards; never showed her point; was ignorant even of the common terms of the art; did not know a quart from a quint, or a pique from a repique; could not tell when she was capotted. There was no comfort in beating her; so the poor General was fain to accept his old Brigade-Major as a substitute, who gave him three points and beat him.

In other respects, she was an excellent wife; gentle, affectionate, and sweet-tempered. She accommodated herself admirably to all

GOING TO THE RACES.

A MEMORABLE day was the third of last June to Mary and Henrietta Coxe, the young daughters of Simon Coxe the carpenter of Aberleigh, for it was the first day of Ascot Races, and the first time of their going to that celebrated union of sport and fashion. There is no pleasure so great in the eyes of our country damsels as a jaunt to Ascot. In the first place, it is, when you get there, a genuine English amusement, open alike to rich and poor, elegant as an opera, and merry as a fair; in the second, this village of Aberleigh is situate about fourteen miles from the course, just within distance, almost out of distance, so that there is commonly enough of suspense and difficulty the slight difficulty, the short suspense, which add such zest to pleasure; finally, at Ascot you are sure to see the King, to see him in his graciousness and his dignity, the finest gentleman in Europe, the greatest sovereign of the world. Truly it is nothing extraordinary that his liege subjects should flock to indulge their feelings of loyalty by the sight of such a monarch, and that the announcement of his presence should cover a barren heath with a dense and crowded population of all ranks and all ages, from the duchess to the gipsy, from the old man of eighty to the child in its mother's arms.

All people love Ascot Races; but our country lasses love them above all. It is their favourite wedding jaunt, for half our young conples are married in the race week, and one or two matches have seemed to me got up purposely for the occasion; and of all the attentions that can be offered by a lover, a drive to the Races is the most irresistible. In short, so congenial is that gay scene to love, that it is a moot point which are most numerous, the courtships that conclude there in the shape of bridal excursions, or those which begin on that favoured spot in the shape of parties of pleasure; and the delicate experiment called "popping the question," is so often put in practice on the very course itself, that when Robert Hewitt, the young farmer at the Holt, asked Master Coxe's permission to escort his daughters, not only the good carpenter, but his neighbours the blacksmith and the shoemaker, looked on this mark of rustic gallantry as the precursor of a declaration in form; and all the village cried out on Hetta Coxe's extreme good luck, Hetta being supposed, and with some reason, to be the chief object of his attention.

Robert Hewitt was a young farmer of the old school, honest, frugal, and industrious; thrifty, thriving, and likely to thrive; one of a fine yeomanly spirit, not ashamed of his station, and fond of following the habits of his forefathers, sowing his own corn, driving his own team, and occasionally ploughing his own

land. As proud, perhaps, of his blunt specch and homely ways as some of his brother farmers of their superior refinement and gentility. Nothing could exceed the scorn with which Robert Hewitt, in his market-cart, drawn by his good horse Dobbin, would look down on one neighbour on his hunter, and another in his gig. To the full as proud as any of them was Robert, but in a different way, and perhaps a safer. He piqued himself, like a good Englishman, on wearing a smock frock, smoking his pipe, and hating foreigners, to our intercourse with whom he was wont to ascribe all the airs and graces, the new fashions, and the effeminacy, which annoyed him in his own countrymen. He hated the French, he detested dandies, and he abhorred fine ladies, fine ways, and finery of any sort. Such was Robert Hewitt.

Henrietta Coxe was a pretty girl of seventeen, and had passed the greater part of her life with an aunt in the next town, who had been a lady's maid in her youth, and had retired thither on a small annuity. To this aunt, who had been dead about a twelvemonth, she was indebted for a name, rather too fine for common wear-I believe she wrote herself Henrietta-Matilda; a large wardrobe, pretty much in the same predicament; and an abundant stock of superfine notions, some skill in mantua-making and inillinery, and a legacy of a hundred pounds to be paid on her wedding-day. Her beauty was quite in the style of a wax doll: blue eyes, flaxen hair, delicate features, and a pink and white complexion, much resembling that sweet pea which is known by the name of the painted lady. Very pretty she was certainly, with all her airs and graces; and very pretty, in spite of her airs and graces, did Robert Hewitt think her; and love, who delights in contrasts, and has an especial pleasure in oversetting wise resolutions, and bending the haughty self-will of the lords of the creation, was beginning to make strange havoc in the stout yeoman's heart. His operations, too, found a very unintentional coadjutrix in old Mrs. Hewitt, who, taking alarm at her son's frequent visits to the carpenter's shop, unwarily expressed a hope that if her son did intend to marry one of the Coxes, he would have nothing to do with the fine lady, but would choose Mary, the elder sister, a dark-haired, pleasant-looking young woman of two-and-twenty, who kept the house as clean as a palace, and was the boast of the village for industry and good-humour. Now this unlucky caution gave Robert, who loved his mother, but did not choose to be managed by her, an additional motive for his lurking preference, by piquing his self-will; add to which, the little damsel herself, in the absence of other admirers, took visible pleasure in his admiration; so that affairs seemed drawing to a crisis, and the party to Ascot appeared likely to end like other jaunts to the same place, in