to describe the air with which she gives that
verse " I will not fear what man can do unto
me! " as if she were a whole body of women's
rights women rolled into one, and defying
the sex. She needs this confidence; for, were
she not protected by her poke bonnet, she
would have been called out dozens of times. It
must be acknowledged, however, that, lacking
Miss Prior's tongue, there would be a dearth
of conversation at our small, select tea-parties.
She generally contrives to have two families
at variance, and the repetition of the ill-
natured things the one says to the other imparts
great vivacity to her conversation. We
always talk before her in the pleasing uncertainty
of a chance word and her repetition
thereof, blowing up a mine between ourselves
and our best friends.  This being done,
Miss Prior redoubles her assiduities to both
parties, travels backwards and forwards diligently
widening the breach, and adding daily
to her repertoire of spiteful anecdotes. Dear,
pretty, sensible, little Mrs. Dove, is the only
person in the community who dares openly to
brave Miss Prior. She quotes to her all the
appropriate texts, and winds up emphatically
with Dr. Wyatt's advice, " You should not
speak evil, even of the town-pump."  Many
quarrels have been adjusted in the Dove
drawing-room, greatly to Miss Prior's discomfiture;
and it is thought by sanguine people,
that if proper measures are taken she may
soon be put a stop to altogether. I wish she
were.

The favourite lounge in Milverston is Miss
Wolsey's shop. She has confectionery and
luncheon buns of the freshest and daintiest;
and, in the two rooms above, a circulating
library of select works, chiefly novels, not quite
so fresh as her pastry. I have borrowed there,
at the rate of a penny per volume, the History
of Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa, Pamela,
and a few other standard works. Also
at Miss Wolsey's may be purchased materials
for fancy-work; and having once proposed
to set up a ladies' news-room and
failed in the attempt, she still receives a
few subscriptions which enable her to have
the St. James's Daily Chronicle always
lying on her counter for inspection. She
also has a register for governesses and
superior servants; but her chief source of
income is buns.

Our two chief milliners, Mrs. Brisket and
Mrs. Dent, live on the same side of the
market-place, a few doors only from each
other. The gayer section of the church parties
patronise Mrs. Briskett; the T. P. clique
uphold Mrs. Dent. Both ladies understand
the science of flattery, and apply it with
the tact which a long and intimate acquaintance
with the feminine idiosyncracy in its
most confidential moments, can alone have
taught them.

Our house is on the north side of
the market-place, nearly opposite St. Mary's
church, and the bay-window of the sitting-
room up-stairs has brought me acquainted
with the outward aspect of a great many
of the Milverston folks, of whose names and
occupations I am altogether ignorant. First,
there are the walking girls: four of them,
all clad alike in grey lama dresses, black capes,
and straw bonnets trimmed with rose-colour;
they are all rather pretty, all of a size, and
all very merry. At every hour of the day
they are to be seen flitting in one direction or
another, chattering and laughing aloud; pausing
occasionally to look round at anything
that has attracted their attention, and then
darting off again, as if they had to be at a
given point at a certain moment. At first, I
thought they were oddities walking for a
wager and bound to traverse so many miles
of paving-stories in so many hours; but the
irregularity of their transits forbids this supposition.
On market-days and days of public
amusement they are ubiquitous; I am sure
they are not canny, they are in so many places
at once. I wish they would get married.

Who is Effect? I myself was young five-
and-twenty years ago, and so far back as
that I can recollect Effect with exactly the
same mediaeval aspect as she wears at this
blessed day. She is not rich, for her garments
are splendid with the mellow tints of
antiquity; but she makes the best of them.
She is of moyen height, and walks with a
swaying gait, suggestive of ducks, while she
holds up her dress in front to display an embroidered
petticoat and a pair of very neat
boots, Her countenance is serio-comic; serio
as regards herself, comic as regards the spectator.
She wears a front of dishevelled
brown curls parted very much on one side,
a ruby velvet bonnet through every season,
and, over all, an awful, nodding plume. In
her disengaged hand she invariably carries an
elegantly bound volume, consisting probably
of Lyrics of the Heart and other poetical
effusions; she does not frequent the streets
so much as the suburban walks; where I often
meet her, murmuring poetry to herself and
looking very melancholy. Poor old Effect!

When the moustache movement began,
Milverston opposed it on principle, as opening
a door to revolutionary sentiments and generally
subversive of that respectability which
is the fundamental characteristic of all
English institutions. We talked seriously
and emphatically about it, and the married
ladies were one and all denunciatory—none
of their husbands should make guys of themselves,
that should they not. Mr. Matthew
Wilson, a gentleman generally supposed to
be under mild but effective government, went
up to town at this critical juncture and returned
with—with all his face eclipsed in
three weeks' growth of variegated hair. It
was not handsome. People asked satirically
if he had gone over to the Latter-Day Saints
—it being well known that he was not a
saint of any denomination—and one fierce lady
who dreaded the contagion of example,