excellent, kind, learned, charitable, indolent.
When I speak of the rector, of course I
mean Dr. Wyatt, not the gentlemen at either
of the new churches, or Mr. Dove, incumbent
of the Chapel of Ease, in Lad Lane. Our
rector held the living of St. Mary's, before I
was born, and it is one of his favourite stories
to tell how he baptised me by a wrong
name, and how cross my dear mother was
with him for making the mistake; and how
he soothed her by saying that my namesake,
Lydia, the seller of purple, was a good woman,
and I should be trained to imitate her. As
if the Cleverboots were not always original!
I remember how he used mildly to reprove
the censorious of our community by saying
with a grave, benign, impressive air, "My
dear people, you should not speak evil even of
the town-pump."

Religious differences are marked and inveterate
at Milverston. Dissenters of every denomination
are considered low; being almost
exclusively confined to the trading classes—the
solitary exception of our own acquaintance is
Dr. Taylor and his family who are members of
the Scotch Kirk.  Then there are the three
church parties: the High, the High-and-dry,
and the Low or Evangelical. Dr. Wyatt leads
the second and by far the most numerous party:
the Reverend Basil St. John represents the
High Church interest, and Mr. Dove is the
Evangelical Apostle. The most recently erected
church—St. James's—is in the suburbs, and
its vicar, young Mr. Collins, has not yet committed
himself to any extreme principles, and
is a favourite with the rector's friends.  Mr.
Basil St. John is of a meagre habit, which he
renders still more striking by clothing himself
in tight, buttoned-up, long-skirted coats,
and keeping his eyelids down when he walks
in the street. He is said to hold a theory that
priests ought not to marry, and is invested
thereby with a sentimental interest in
the eyes of his female parishioners, who,
are for ever conspiring to present him with
some piece of ecclesiastical millinery for the
embellishment of his church.  The admirers
of Mr. Dove are numerous, and to them has
been ironically affixed the initials T. P. (or
Truly Pious).  They eschew all public
amusements; are never seen at a ball, an
archery-meeting or any other of our so-called
vestibules to perdition; are much given to
lecturing in and out of season, to tea-drinking,
to denunciation of other sects, and to
other quiet excitements of a domestic character.
The rector's friends are less strict;
they patronise the little theatre for the good
of the town; keep up the balls patriotically;
dine, dance, and play a quiet rubber at each
other's houses.  Dr. Wyatt could not get
through his life without his rubber; he has
it as regularly as his dinner, and avers that
it promotes digestion.

Hidden far down a narrow street, in the
oldest part of the town, is the Roman Catholic
Chapel.  Mr. Garnet, the priest, is suspected
by timid old ladies of being a Jesuit in disguise.
I only see in him a man with whom
fasting has agreed remarkably well; who is
diligent amongst his people, and gives cause
of offence to nobody.  He resides in a very
ancient house with an enclosed garden, which
is the dwelling of three maiden-sisters—Percy
by name—who, to judge from their appearance,
must be in narrow circumstances. They
do not go into society at all, but the two
elder sisters may be seen occasionally on
market-days; the third never goes out.  I
have observed them often in oddly-shaped
Leghorn bonnets and purple pelisses, made
many years ago, bargaining for eggs just
below our dining-room window. Their faces
are pinched and colourless, their eyes and hair
dim; but nobody ever indulges in a flippant
remark on their appearance. It is enough for
Milverston that they are ladies of long
descent, and that the ancient gable-house
they inhabit bears, upon a shield over the
doorway, the half-effaced arms of the noble
Percy family, and the date fifteen hundred
and seventy-six.  The oldest person in the
town cannot remember when any but a
Percy lived in that house.  St. Mary's
Church is full of their monuments, and the
magnificent stained east window of which
Milverston is so proud, was put up three
centuries ago in remembrance of one of
them who fell at Zutphen with the knight
of gentle memory, Sir Philip Sidney.

Our doctors and lawyers are so numerous
that it has ever been cause of wonder to me,
how they all contrive to exist upon so small
a community, which is remarkably peaceful
and healthy. But that they live, and live
comfortably, nay luxuriously, is a fact sufficiently
attested by their wives and daughters
wearing best bonnets every day. I do not
patronise either profession, for Uncle Cyril
has made me a convert to homœopathy; and,
with one of these pretty little twelve-and-six-
penny cases of globules and a manual, price one
shilling, I doctor myself and all our family.  As
for law, I would rather give away everything
I possess, than venture into such a complicated
trap. If anybody does go to law in
Milverston, it is surreptitiously, as if they
were ashamed of themselves: the fact is
whispered in corners with much pursing up
of mouths and cautious condemnation.

Milverston does not lack its perambulating
gazette.  This news-organ is Miss Judith
Prior, a maiden lady, many years past the
seventh age of woman—she may be fifty-
six; perhaps sixty; it is impossible to
guess with exactness, for she devotes a good
deal of her superfluous energy to suppressing
and embellishing the fact. She is a great authority
amongst the clergy, and holds despotic
power over all the charity-school children. In
church she stands up before all the congregation,
with a coppery complexion which has
won her the epithet of the Indian Chief,
chanting the psalms defiantly. It is impossible