HOPPING BOB.

Ir was on a rainy day, late in last November, that Mrs. Villars came to take possession of her new residence, called the Lodge, a pretty house about ten miles off, situated within the boundaries of Oakhampstead Park, the pleasant demesne of her brother-in-law, Sir Arthur Villars, and generally appropriated to the use of some dowager of that ancient and wealthy race.

Mrs. Villars was an elderly lady of moderate fortune and excellent character. She was the widow of a dignified and richly-beneficed clergyman, who had been dead some years, and had left her with three promising sons and two pretty daughters, all of whom were now making their way in the world to her perfect satisfaction;-the daughters happily and respectably married; the sons thriving in different professions; and all of them as widely scattered as the limits of our little island could well permit;—so that their mother, disencumbered of the cares of her offspring, had nothing now to prevent her accepting Sir Arthur's kind offer of leaving the great town in which she had hitherto resided, and coming to occupy the family jointure-house at Oakhampstead. To inhabit a mansion in which so many stately matrons of the house of Villars had lived and died, was a point of dignity no less than of economy; and besides, there was no resisting so excellent an opportunity of gratifying, amidst the good Archdeacon's native shades, the taste for retirement and solitude of which she had all her life been accustomed to talk. Talk indeed she did so very much of this taste, that shrewd observers somewhat questioned its existence, and were not a little astonished when, after dallying away the summer over take-leave visits, she and her whole establishment (two maids, a pony-chaise, a tabby-cat, and her scrub, Joseph,) left C., with its society and amusements, its morning calls and evening parties, for solitude and the Lodge.

Never was place or season better calculated to bring a lover of retirement to the test. Oakhampstead, separated from our populous neighbourhood by a barrier of wild heath, I was situated in the most beautiful and least inhabited part of a thinly-inhabited and beautiful county; the roads were execrable; the nearest post-town was seven miles off; the vicar was a bachelor of eighty; and the great house was shut up. There was not even one neighbour of decent station to whom she might complain of the want of a neighbourhood. Poor Mrs Villars! the last stroke too-the desertion of the park-was an unexpected calamity; for although she knew that Sir Arthur had never resided there since the death of a most beloved daughter, after which event it had been entirely abandoned, except for a few

weeks in the autumn, when his only son, Harry Villars, had been accustomed to visit it for the purpose of shooting, yet she had understood that this her favourite nephew was on the point of marriage with the beautiful heiress of General Egerton, and that this fine old seat was to form the future residence of the young couple. Something she learned had now occurred to prevent an union which, a few months ago, had seemed so desirable to all parties. Some dispute between the fathers, originally trifling, but worked up into bitterness by the influence of temper; and all preparations were stopped, Harry Villars gone abroad, and the great house as much shut up as ever. Poor Mrs. Villars, who, after all her praises of retirement and her declared love of solitude, could not with any consistency run away from this "Deserted Village," was really as deserving of pity as any one guilty of harmless affectation well could be.

The good lady, however, was not wanting to herself in this emergency. She took cold, that she might summon an apothecary from the next town; and she caused her pigs to commit a trespass on the garden of a litigious farmer, that she might have an excuse for consulting the nearest attorney. Both resources failed. The medical man was one of eminent skill and high practice, whom nothing but real illness could allure into constant attendance; and the lawyer was honest, and settled the affair of the pigs at a single visit. All that either could do for her was to enumerate two or three empty houses that might possibly be filled in the course of the next summer, and two or three people who would probably call when the roads became passable; so that poor Mrs. Villars, after vainly trying to fill up her vacant hours-Alas! all her hours!-by superintending her own poultryyard, overlooking the village-school, giving away flannel petticoats, and relieving half the old women in the parish, had very nearly made up her mind to find the Lodge disagree with her, and to return to her old quarters at C., when the arrival of a fresh inmate at the next farm-house gave an unexpected interest to her own situation.

Oakhampstead was, as I have said, a very beautiful spot. Its chief beauty consisted in a small lake or mere without the park, surrounded partly by pastoral meadow-grounds, and partly by very wild and romantic woodland scenery, amongst which grew some of the noblest oaks in the kingdom. The water did not, perhaps, cover more than thirty acres ; although a length disproportioned to its breadth, a bend in the middle, and above all, the infinite variety of its shores, indented with tiny bays and jutting out into mimic promontories, gave it an appearance of much greater extent. Rides and walks had formerly been cut around it; but these were now rude and overgrown, the rustic seats decayed and fallen, and the

summer-houses covered with ivy and creeping plants. Since the absence of Sir Arthur neglect had succeeded to care; but a poet or a painter would have felt that the scene had gained in picturesqueness what it had lost in ornament. A green boat, however, and a thatched boat-house still remained in excellent preservation under the shadow of some magnificent elms; and the chimney of the boatman's cottage might just be seen peeping; between the trees, over the high embankment which formed the head of the lake. The only other habitation visible from the water was an old farm-house, the abode of Farmer Ash-, ton, whose wife, formerly the personal attendant of the late Lady Villars, had soon been found by her surviving relative to be by far the most conversible person in the place: and if the many demands on her attention, the care of men, maids, cows, calves, pigs, turkeys, geese, ducks, chickens, and children, would have allowed her to devote much time to the unfortunate lady, her society would doubtless have proved a great solace and resource. But Mrs. Ashton, with all her desire to oblige Mrs. Villars, was enviably busy, and could only at short and distant intervals listen to, and, by listening, relieve the intolerable ennui of her seclusion.

Now, however, a fresh inmate had made her appearance at the farm: a young woman, whom Mrs. Ashton called Anne, and introduced as her niece; who, having much leisure (for apparently she did nothing in the family but assist in the lighter needle-work,) and evincing, as far as great modesty and diffidence would permit, her respectful sympathy with the involuntary recluse, became her favourite auditress during her frequent visits to Farmer Ashton's; and was soon sent for as a visiter (an humble visiter, for neither Mrs. Villars nor her youngest guest ever forgot the difference of their stations) at the Lodge. Seldom a day passed without Joseph and the ponychaise being sent to fetch Anne from the farm. Nothing went well without her.

Partly, of course, the charm might be resolvable into the bare fact of getting a listener; any good listener would have been a welcome acquisition in this emergency; that is to say, any one who felt and showed a genuine sympathy with the "Fair afflicted;" but few would have been so welcome as Anne, who soon became, on the score of her own merits, a first-rate favourite with Mrs. Villars.

Whether Anne was pretty or not was a standing question in the village of Oakhampstead. Her zealous patroness answered without the slightest hesitation in the affirmative. Other people doubted. For the poorer sort her face and figure wanted showiness; whilst the young farmers and persons of that class complained that she was not, according to their notions, sufficiently genteel. Mrs. Villars's man-of-all-work, Joseph, combined both

objections by declaring that Anne would be well enough if she were smarter. My readers must judge for themselves, as well at least as a pen-and-ink drawing will enable them.

Her figure was round and short, and piquante and youthful. Her face was round also, with delicate features and a most delicate complexion, as white and smooth as ivory, and just coloured enough for health. She had finely cut grey eyes, with dark eye-brows and eye-lashes, a profusion of dark hair, and a countenance so beaming with gaiety and sweetness, that the expression was always like that of other faces when they smile. Then her voice and accent were enchanting. She sang little snatches of old airs in gushes like a nightingale-freely, spontaneously, as if she could no more help singing as she went about than that "angel of the air;" and her spoken words were as musical and graceful as her songs; what she said being always sweet, gentle and intelligent; sometimes very lively and sometimes a little sad.

Her dress was neat and quiet,—plain dark gowns, fitting with great exactness, such as were equally becoming to her station and her figure; delicately white caps and habit-shirts, and the simplest of all simple straw bonnets. The only touch of finery about her was in ber chaussure; the silk stockings and kid slippers in which her beautiful little feet were always clad, and in her scrupulously clean and newlooking French gloves, of the prettiest pale colours;-a piece of quaker-like and elegant extravagance, which, as well as the purity of her accent and diction, somewhat astonished Mrs. Villars, until she found from Mrs. Ashton, that Anne also had been a lady's maid, admitted early into the family, and treated almost as a companion by her young mistress. "Where had she lived?" was the next question.

"In General Egerton's family," was the reply; and a new source of interest and curiosity was opened to the good lady, who had never seen her niece, that was to have been, and was delighted with the opportunity of making a variety of inquiries respecting herself and her connexions. Anne's answers to these questions were given with great brevity and some reluctance; she looked down and blushed, and fidgeted with a sprig of myrtle which she held in her hand, in a manner widely different from her usual lady-like composure.

"Was Miss Egerton so very handsome?" "Oh, no!"

"So very accomplished?" "No."

"Did Harry love her very much?" "Yes."

"Did she love him?"

"Oh, yes!"

"Was she worthy of him?" "No."

66

"Ah!" said Mrs. Villars, "I thought she was too fine a lady, too full of airs and graces! I have had my doubts of her ever since a note that she sent me, written on blue embossed paper, and smelling most atrociously of ottar of roses. I dare say Harry has had a narrow escape. Sir Arthur, even before the quarrel, said she was quite a petite maitresse. Then you think, Anne, that my nephew is better without her?"

This query caused a good deal of blushing besitation, and nearly demolished the sprig of myrtle. On its being repeated, she said, "She did not know! she could not tell! She did not wish to speak ill of Miss Egerton; but few ladies appeared to her worthy of Mr. Villars he was so amiable."

"Was Miss Egerton kind to her?"
"Pretty well," answered Anne quietly.
"And the General ?"

"Oh, very! very!" rejoined Anne sighing deeply.

"Why did she leave the family?"

At this question poor Anne burst into tears, and the conversation ended. Mrs. Villars, unwilling to distress her favourite, did not resume it. She was already prepossessed against the Egertons by the disappointment and vexation which they had occasioned to her nephew, and had little doubt but that either the General or his daughter had behaved unjustly or unkindly to Anne.

Winter had now worn away; even those remains of winter which linger so long amidst the buds and blossoms of spring; spring itself had passed into summer, the country was every day assuming fresh charms, the roads were becoming passable, and distant neighbours were beginning to discover and to value the lady of the Lodge, who became more reconciled to her residence, varied as it now was by occasional visits to the county families, and frequent excursions with Anne upon the lake.

On these occasions they were constantly attended by the boatman, a handy, good-humoured, shock-pated fellow, of extraordinary ugliness, commonly called Bob Green, but also known by the name of " Hopping Bob;" not on account of his proficiency in that one legged accomplishment, as the cognomen would seem to imply, but because an incurable lameness in the hip had produced a jerking sort of motion in walking, much resembling that mode of progress; and had also given a peculiar one-sided look to his short muscular figure. The hop, it must be confessed, stood much in his way on land, although he was excellent in the management of a boat; in rowing, or steering, or fishing, or any thing that had relation to the water.

A clever fellow was Bob, and a civil, and paid much attention to his lady and her young companion; and as the summer advanced, they passed more and more time on the beautiful

lake, of which they continued the sole visiters; the great house being still deserted, and little known either of Sir Arthur or his son.

One afternoon, Mrs. Villars, returning unexpectedly from a distant visit, drove down to the farm, intending to spend the evening with Anne in the pleasure-boat. It was a bright sunny day towards the middle of July. The blue sky, dappled with fleecy clouds, was reflected on the calm clear water, and mingled with the shadows of the trees upon the banks, to which the sun, shining through the tall oaks, gave occasionally a transparent glitter, as of emeralds or beryls; swallows skimmed over the lake, flitting around and about, after the myriads of insects that buzzed in the summer air; the white water-lily lay in its pure beauty in the midst of its deep green leaves; the foxglove and the wild veitch were glowing in the woods; the meadow-sweet, the willow-herb, and the golden flag fringed the banks; cows stood cooling their limbs in the shallow indented bays, and a flock of sheep was lying at rest in the distant meadows.

Altogether it was a scene of sweet and soothing beauty; and Mrs. Villars was looking for Anne to partake in her enjoyment (for Anne, Mrs. Ashton had told her, was gone down to the mere,) when in a small cove at the other side of the lake, she beheld in a fine effect of sunny light, the boat, their own identical green boat, resting quietly on the water, with two persons sitting in it, seemingly in earnest conversation. One of the figures was undoubtedly Anne. Her astonished friend recognised at a glance her lead-coloured gown, her straw bonnet, and that peculiar air and attitude which gave grace and beauty to her simple dress. The other was a man, tall as it seemed, and elegant-most certainly a gentleman. Mrs. Villars even fancied that the height and bearing had a strong resemblance to her own dear nephew, Harry; and immediately a painful suspicion of the possible cause of Anne's leaving Miss Egerton forced itself upon her mind. Harry had perhaps found the lady's maid no less charming than her mistress!

A thousand trifling circumstances in favour of this opinion rushed on her recollection: Anne's blushes when Harry was accidentally named her constant avoidance of all mention of the family in which she had resided: the great inequality of her spirits: her shrinking from the very sight of chance visiters; the emotion amounting to pain, which any remarkable instance of kindness or confidence never failed to occasion her; and above all, the many times in which, after seeming on the point of making some avowal to her kind patroness, she had drawn suddenly back : all these corroborating circumstances pressed at once with startling distinctness on Mrs. Villars's memory; and, full of care, she returned to the farm to cross-question Mrs. Ashton.