can bring up a parcel for you from Colchester
now and then, why I will. Good-by, my
dear."

II. THE ARRIVAL.

SUSAN SMITHERS was a shrewd ingenuous
sturdy girl, with some honest sense and courage
about her; but she felt rather shy and uncomfortable
when she stood at the window of the large
dingy wholesale and retail shop, and saw the
crane, like a huge gibbet, impending over her
head in a threatening and mysterious way. She
could observe the bustle and stir inside the
shop, where sprightly gentlemen, adorned with
white neckcloths (for such was Mr. Dobbs's
humour), weighed and packed pounds of tea,
tins of cocoa, and parcels of coffee; where the
sugar-chopper sounded unceasingly, and orders
were shouted to the apprentices, as if the place
were a ship, and a storm was looming in sight.
She waited a moment or two, looking.

But common sense is a plant that grows just
as well in the village as the town, and Susan,
being a quick resolute prompt girl, was not
going to waste her time standing outside; so
she walked in, and seeing a young man with
large whiskers and an imposing appearance
stooping in front of the counter, and reading
the direction on her box, she asked him
if that was Mr. Dobbs's, and requested him to
be kind enough to tell her the way down to
Mr. Dobbs's kitchen. The imposing young
man instantly turned pilot, and with a
good-natured smile, returning that given him by
Susan in mute reply, was entering into the full
spirit of the occasion, when, from the left-hand
side of the shop, at the further end, there
stepped down from a high enclosed desk, that
looked partly like a madman's cell, and still
more like a pulpit, a tall thin old gentleman,
who wore a pigtail (my story dates some twenty
years back), a blue coat with bright brass
buttons, a yellow marsala waistcoat with a scarlet
one underneath (only the edge showing), and a
frilled shirt-front, and nankeen trousers. He
was the very pink of neatness and precision, was
this old gentleman, and his neatness and trimness
made him seem quite alert and young.
His face was of a pale nankeen colour, like the
part of his dress already glanced at, but then it
was clear in tone, and about the cheeks healthy
blood showed through it. This pleasant old
gentleman held a pen in one hand, and jostled
his great bunch of large gold watch-seals with
the other, as he came up to Susan's pilot.

"Mr. Tompkins," he said, "mind that that
tea goes off to Edwards's people this evening.
They have written again about it. But who is
this? Are you the new servant?"

Susan dropped a pretty curtsey, and said,
mildly but firmly, that she believed she was.

The old gentleman gave her a long keen look
from under his thick grey eyebrows: a parental
custom-house officer's sort of look: and said,
"Be a good girl— it's not a heavy place. Mr.
Tompkins, take down— What's your name,
my dear, eh?"

"Susan Smithers, if you please, sir." (A
second curtsey.)

"And I do please. Take down Susan, Mr.
Tompkins, to Mrs. Thompson, and tell her to
make her comfortable."

"What a nice old gentleman!" said Susan,
as she followed her nimble and good-natured
pilot down the dark back stairs.

"Yes, he is a good old party. That's our
governor."

"O dear me! What, is that Mr. Dobbs? Well,
he has a pleasant way with him."

"Yes, that's the governor, no mistake about
it."

Susan was very warmly received by her old
widow aunt, Mr. Dobbs's housekeeper for thirty
years. The worthy woman was very busy
preparing dinner, and was up to her eyes in
potatoes, which she peeled and tossed into a pan
of water as quickly as though she were doing it
for a wager. In a very few minutes, Susan,
like a good smart willing girl as she was, had
taken off her bonnet, and washed her face and
hands, put on a clean apron, and was ready to
chop parsley and finish the potatoes.

"Susan's a good sort," thought the old lady
to herself. " She'll do. She'll be as good as gold
to me. And how neat and handy she is, and a
tidy looking girl too!"

Together over the potatoes, which one by one
splashed into the great yellow pan, the old
aunt and her niece chatted over Colchester
friends.

"And how is Jane Turner? And is Miss
Charlotte married yet? How's brother's
rheumatism?" and so on. To all of which queries
Susan answered sensibly and sharply. All of a
sudden she darted at her bundle that had been
placed on a chair near the window.

"O, dear aunt, what a stupid forgetful thing
I've been all this time, to forget I brought
up some clover turfs for the lark you're so
fond of."

"O, how very kind, Susan, to think of poor
Dicky! And they are nice and fresh. 0,
they do remind one of the country, they do."

"Let me sprinkle them, aunt, with some
water, and give Dicky one now."

"Do, my dear, while I get the meat down,
for master always dines at five, and I haven't
too much time, Susy."

"Where is Dicky, aunt?"

"Why there, dear, by the back door. I put
him there to let him have as much air as
possible."

Susan tripped to the back door, and there, in a
light green cage, found the lark: no longer bright
and quick as when sent from Colchester, but
dingy, ruffled, and almost tailless, and with eyes
that had now become knowing, yet spiritless.
It was hopping on a dusty little door-mat bit of
withered turf, and was thrusting its little graceful
brown head, feverishly and restlessly, like
Sterne's starling, through the sooty wires of its
prison.

A sudden sense of the confinement and
sordidness of London city life gloomed down for