even single lodgers—were thrown very much
together. The clergyman was very popular.
There were charming pathways, and shady
nut groves, and whole days and weeks of
idleness on the yellow sand. So you may say
it was impossible for any two young people
to remain unattached for more than a few
days. It is remarkable, too, that the spire
of the little old church was conspicuous from
every point of view. In the midst of a
conversation in almost any portion of the
country, on lifting up their eyes the young
people were sure to see the gilded weathercock
glistening in the sun, and saying, or
in fancy's ear seeming to say, " Here I am.
Banns proclaimed on the shortest notice—or
licensed marriages punctually performed."
The invitation thus ostentatiously given, it
was impossible to resist—and Blissford could
boast of one happy couple more.

To this balmy spot Jack Plover—on the
recommendation of a friend whose
remembrance of Blissford was now endeared by
the possession of a wife and seven children
—Jack betook himself. The rain which
had been a deluge in London was a water-
spout here. Day and night tubs were
perpetually discharged upon the chalky roads.
The lake swelled over its banks, and spread
over all the fields. Garden walls were
undermined, and lay in ruins on the tops of
cucumber frames; grassy banks were
prostrated, and formed avalanches of mud over
all the footpaths. So when Mr. Plover looked
out of the window of Essex villa on the
morning after his arrival, he saw nothing
between him and the sea but a great floating
expanse of white chalk, relieved by some
uprooted hedgerows, and a low, sullen, creeping
inundation caused by the gradual but sure
rising of the lake, which converted the whole
district into a true representation of that early
stage of the world's history, when the earth
was inhabited only by the mastodon and the
ichthyosauri. The sight of a crocodile would
not have astonished the observer. In fact it
would have delighted him, for Jack was of a
social disposition, and would have looked on
a visit from a hippopotamus as a vast
improvement on the utter solitude to which he
saw he was condemned. " Is there no one
else in the whole parish of Blissford? " he
sighed, for his spirits were rapidly evaporating.
"Have the inhabitants of all these
villas been washed out of them, like a cargo
of oranges out of a stranded ship? But if
they were as full as Noah's ark, how could
they establish a communication with each
other?  An ordinary umbrella would be
converted into a sponge before you got to the
nearest neighbour; boats also are impossible,
for the excessive porousness of the soil sucks
in every drop that falls, leaving the surface
in a clinging, half-dry condition, so that you
have the appearance, after a turn or two on
the garden-walk, of having whitewashed your
boots. But anything is better than this. I
will make a tour of inspection in front of the
villas. Somebody perhaps will know me. If
not, I will make up to the first pleasant-looking
fellow I see. I will have him to dinner. Rainy
weather is delightful for mild Havannahs."

With these active resolutions he put on
his boots, buttoned his great-coat, grasped
his umbrella, and was on the point of
leaving the house. But help was near at
hand, and sunshine—in a metaphorical sense
of the word—once more penetrated into
Jack's room. He thought he heard in
the garden, which abutted on the road, the
sound of some one approaching; he went to
the window, and looking down, saw the
flattened top of a saturated umbrella at the
front door. He heard a bell—he heard the
door opened—a voice asking if " the gentleman"
was at home; he then heard a dripping
as if from a leak in the roof, but it only
proceeded from the visitor's hat, on the
oil-cloth in the passage; the parlour door was
opened, and a man in a state of sloppy humidity
put his head a very short way into the
apartment, and smiled a ghastly smile, while
his body was concealed by the door.

"Come in," said Jack, in a cheery voice,
"pray don't stand on ceremony. I am
delighted to see you."

"I am only afraid," said the face, " of
spoiling the greens."

"Never mind the spoiling of the greens,"
said Jack, " that's more the cook's business
than ours. Are you the market gardener?"

"The carpet, sir, I mean," said the head
once more. " The greys stand it very well,
but lime and water is fatal to the green
patterns. My shoes would burn them up like
vitriol." Jack looked at the carpet: it was
in squares of grey and green.

"Can't you jump always on one of the
greys ? " said Jack. " Come in, and tell me
the news of the place."

"Sad news, I fear, sir," said the man, now
emerging into the room and adroitly planting
his footsteps always on the light- coloured
squares. " The Superiors can't take in any
more, and what the Inferiors may do makes
me tremble to contemplate."

"Sit down, my good friend," said Jack,
enchanted to find an opportunity for his
argumentative powers. " There's nothing I like
so much as a little political discussion. After
all, arn't both in their right places ?—the
Superiors above, the Inferiors below? ",

" I can't sit down, sir," said the visitor. " I
should leave my mark on the green morocco
bottoms, and ruin them for life, having had
the misfortune to have a backward tumble on
my way down here. But, with regard to
Superiors and Inferiors being in their right
places, they may be at this moment—let us
hope they are—but if this job continues, the
Inferiors will decidedly swallow us up."

"I allow no man, in my presence," replied
Jack in a stately manner, " to join in the
ridiculous cry against the people. What you