—mamma must be a rum one—I thought—
but they're all wonderful people at the Butts;
and I would rather explore that undiscovered
region than the sources of the Nile. But I
had no time for these meditations, for I soon
found sufficient occupation in fitting her and
her possessions into the one-horse fly, which,
on a signal from her, had drawn up beside us.
There were two or three trunks, two or three
bandboxes, a great number of baskets, great
and small, a birdcage, and an uncountable
variety of paper parcels, so that when, after
much shaking and shifting, she was fairly
seated, I looked in vain for any room in or
about the vehicle for myself. However her
lynx eye discovered a small unoccupied space
beside the driver, which, by dint of sitting
sideways, with my legs dangling over the
wheel, she thought might be available, but
even her ingenuity could discover no process
by which any room could be made for my
portmanteau. She therefore gave positive
orders to the innkeeper to forward my luggage
at once in a light cart to the Queeker Arms,
and professing great fear that her mamma
would be alarmed if she did not arrive soon,
she begged the man to drive as hard as he
could, and off we went. The woman's voice
was extraordinary; it was so shrill and clear,
that, sitting quietly among her baggage, and
in spite of the rumbling and creaking of our
fly over a not very well-made road, and the
jumbling of the miscellaneous articles tied on
the roof, she made every syllable as distinct
to me on the driving-seat as if we had been
close together in a silent room.

"Do you see that thorn bush on the right
hand, and the elm tree a little way down the
lane? That's the scene of Biddy Budd's
Fable of the Donkey and the Crow. The
donkey stood under the thorn and wished for
wings, and the crow sat on the elm and wished
for long ears. Pretty idea, isn't it? and
what do you think is the moral of the story?
That people should be contented with their
positions and not wish to change with their
neighbours? O dear, not at all. It alludes to
the Reverend Stephen Budge, of Gaperton
Vicarage, who thinks himself a poet, and
says his Pegasus can fly. But, you see, Biddy
Budd makes great fun of him, for she puts a
crow's wings on a donkey, and calls it 'The
Winged Pegasus of a certain reverend would-
be poet, who resides not a hundred miles from
Gaperton Vicarage.' Isn't that witty and
severe ? She's immensely religious, is Miss
Wormer, and says the most biting things you
ever heard. Drive on, coachman, mamma will
be greatly alarmed—"

Here there was a pause for a moment in
the stream of sound that went whistling into
my ear like a heated wire.

"You had better get threepence ready,''
it began again. " There's a 'pike round the
corner. Mr. Slockum—a great wit, Mr.
Slockum; they say his writings, when they
come out, will be very like Joseph Miller's—
worked for one or two years at an epigram
on that 'pike. It was kept then by a man of
the name of Salmon, and he had come to the
second line where he talked of the "net"
produce, but before he got any farther Salmon
left the 'pike, and now William Jones keeps
it. There he is—you had better pay him the
threepence. Very hard on Mr. Slockum,
wasn't it? Mr. Slockum kept three pupils—
but at present they've all gone away—and he
advertises to take half-a-dozen, at five pounds
a year less than his printed terms, provided
they are the sons of gentlemen. So when
they come, they will be a delightful accession
to our society."

By dint of great exertion, I managed to ask
her how many families there were in the
Butts altogether, and the question seemed to
make her amazingly happy.

"Let me see," she said, laying a long thin
unsubstantial fore-finger of one hand on the
fore-finger of the other—"let me see. There's
the Grove—where the Wormers live; there
were once three elm trees, they say, on the
ground, so they call it the Grove—that's one.
The Wilderness—Mr. Pinker's, a very large
place, more than an acre, and an excellent
house, coach-house and stable, entrance lodge
and iron gates, quite a show place—that's
two. Then there's Belvidere Castle, mamma's
—a large house on the right with Venetian
blinds to the upper windows and a green
verandah; the porch is round, with turrets on
the top, so we call it the Castle—that's three.
Then, there's the Bangles's—he calls it
Niagara Villa because there's a spring that
falls into a shell—that's four. The Dingle—
the Cave—the Den—the Hollow—the Mount
—the Vale—the Levels—the Hermitage—
Oporto Hall—"

"Ha!" I said or rather roared, "that's a
nice name for a house; who lives there?"

"The great Mr. Mudd, and his charming
nieces the Miss Boltons—"

"And what is Mr. Mudd great in?"

"Decanters. He won the prize at the
Fine Art Exhibition for a decanter that holds
three bottles, and doesn't look much bigger
than a pint."

I determined, if possible, to make the
acquaintance of Mr. Mudd, who struck me to
be the most usefully ingenious of all the
distinguished characters I had heard described.

"Then there's the parsonage- it isn't the
parsonage, but only the house where the
curate lives- Mr. Platterwipe, who is a
wonderful musician and plays on the flute
delightfully, and also on the bass fiddle. He
is a great genius, and reads the prayers
through his nose, with a twist up at the end
of them like the chorus to a ballad. It's quite
charming, and as he says he has a vocation for
celibacy, we young ladies just consider him
one of ourselves, and Mr. Slockum calls us
the Nunpareils. See, there's Mr. Bangles's—
there's the Grove—that's the Hermitage—
and this is Mamma's."