that were being made to repel the invasion of
Buonaparte, which some people imagined
might take place at the mouth of the Tyne.
Miss Jenkyns was evidently very much
alarmed; and the first part of her letters was
often written in pretty intelligible English,
conveying particulars of the preparations which
were made in the family with whom she was
residing against the dreaded event; the
bundles of clothes that were packed up ready
for a flight to Alston Moor (a wild hilly piece
of ground between Northumberland and
Cumberland); the signal that was to be given
for this flight, and for the simultaneous turning
out of the volunteers under arms; which
said signal was to consist (if I remember
rightly) in ringing the church bells in a
particular and ominous manner. This warning
summons was actually given, one day, when
Miss Jenkyns and her hosts were at a dinnerparty
in Newcastle (not a very wise proceeding,
if there be any truth in the moral attached
to the fable of the Boy and the Wolf; but so
it was,) and Miss Jenkyns, hardly recovered
from her fright, wrote the next day to
describe the sound, the breathless shock, the
hurry and alarm; and then, taking breath,
she added, "How trivial, my dear father, do
all our apprehensions of the last evening
appear, at the present moment, to calm and
inquiring minds! " And here Miss Matey
broke in with—"But, indeed, my dear, they
were not at all trivial or trifling at the time.
I know I used to wake up in the night many
a time, and think I heard the tramp of the
French entering Cranford. My mother has
sat by my bed half a night through, holding
my hand and comforting me; and many
people talked of hiding themselves in the
saltmines;—and meat would have kept capitally
down there, only perhaps we should have
been thirsty. And my father preached a
whole set of sermons on the occasion; one set
in the mornings, all about David and Goliath,
to spirit up the people to fighting with spades
or bricks, if need were; and the other set
in the afternoon, proving that Napoleon
(that was another name for Bony, as we used
to call him) was all the same as Apollyon and
Abaddon. I remember, my father rather
thought he should be asked to print this last
set; but the parish had, perhaps, had enough
of them with hearing."

Peter Marmaduke Arley Jenkyns, ("poor
Peter! " as Miss Matey began to call him)
was at school at Shrewsbury by this time.
The rector took up his pen, and rubbed up
his Latin, once more, to correspond with his
boy. It was very clear that the lad's were
what are called show-letters. They were of
a highly mental description, giving an account
of his studies, and his intellectual hopes of
various kinds, with an occasional quotation
from the classics; but, now and then, the
animal nature broke out in such a little
sentence as this, evidently written in a trembling
hurry, after the letter had been inspected:
"Mother, dear, do send me a cake, and put
plenty of citron in." The "mother, dear,"
probably answered her boy in the form of
cakes and "goody," for there were none of
her letters among this set; but a whole
collection of the rector's, to whom the Latin in
his boy's letters was like a trumpet to the old
war-horse. I do not know much about Latin,
certainly, and it is, perhaps, an ornamental
language; but not very useful, I think at
least to judge from the bits I remember out
of the rector's letters. One was: "You
have not got that town in your map of
Ireland; but Bonus Bernardus non videt omnia,
as the Proverbia say."Presently it became
very evident that "poor Peter" got himself
into many scrapes. There were letters of
stilted penitence to his father, for some
wrongdoing; and, among them all, was a
badly-written, badly-sealed, badly-directed, blotted
note—"My dear, dear, dear, dearest mother,
I will be a better boy—I will, indeed; but
don't, please, be ill for me; I am not worth it;
but I will be good, darling mother."

Miss Matey could not speak for crying,
after she had read this note. She gave it to
me in silence, and then got up and took it to
her sacred recesses in her own room, for fear,
by any chance, it might get burnt. "Poor
Peter!" she said; "he was always in scrapes;
he was too easy. They led him wrong, and
then left him in the lurch. But he was too
fond of mischief. He could never resist a
joke. Poor Peter!"

Poor Peter's career lay before him rather
pleasantly mapped out by kind friends, but
Bonus Bernardus non videt omnia, in this map
too. He was to win honours at Shrewsbury
School, and carry them thick to Cambridge,
and after that, a living awaited him, the gift
of his godfather, Sir Peter Arley. Poor Peter!
his lot in life was very different to what his
friends had hoped and planned. Miss Matey
told me all about it, and I think it was as a relief
to her when she had done so. He was the
darling of his mother, who seemed to dote on
all her children, though she was, perhaps, a
little afraid of Deborah's superior acquirements.
Deborah was the favourite of her father,
and when Peter disappointed him, she became
his pride. The sole honour Peter brought
away from Shrewsbury, was the reputation of
being the best good fellow that ever was, and of
being the captain of the school in the art of
practical joking. His father was disappointed,
but set about remedying the matter in a
manly way. He could not afford to send
Peter to read with any tutor, but he could
read with him himself; and Miss Matey told
me much of the awful preparations in the
way of dictionaries and lexicons that were
made in her father's study the morning
Peter began.

"My poor mother! " said she. "I remember
how she used to stand in the hall, just
near enough to the study-door to catch the
tone of my father's voice. I could tell, in a