like a prisoner whom his turnkey grudgingly
released, I looked in again over the low wall at
the scene of departed glories. Here, in the
haymaking time, had I been delivered from the
dungeons of Seringapatam, an immense pile (of
haycock), by my countrymen, the victorious
British (boy next door and his two cousins),
and had been recognised with ecstasy by my
affianced one (Miss Green), who had come all
the way from England (second house in the
terrace) to ransom, me, and marry me. Here
had I first heard in confidence, from one whose
father was greatly connected, being under
Government, of the existence of a terrible banditti,
called "The Radicals," whose principles were,
that the Prince Regent wore stays, and that
nobody had a right to any salary, and that the
army and navy ought to be put down—horrors
at which I trembled in my bed, after supplicating
that the Radicals might be speedily
taken and hanged. Here, too, had we, the
small boys of Boles's, had that cricket match
against the small boys of Coles's, when Boles
and Coles had actually met upon the ground,
and when, instead of instantly hitting out at
one another with the utmost fury, as we had all
hoped and expected, those sneaks had said
respectively, "I hope Mrs. Boles is well," and
"I hope Mrs. Coles and the baby are doing
charmingly." Could it be that, after all this,
and much more, the Playing-field was a Station,
and No. 97 expectorated boiling-water and red-
hot cinders on it, and the whole belonged by
Act of Parliament to S.E.R.?

As it could be, and was, I left the place with
a heavy heart for a walk all over the town. And
first of Timpson's, up-street. When I departed
from Dullborough in the strawy arms of
Timpson's Blue-Eyed Maid, Timpson's was a moderate-
sized coach-office (in fact, a little coach-
office), with an oval transparency in the window,
which looked beautiful by night, representing
one of Timpson's coaches in the act of passing
a milestone on the London road with great
velocity, completely full inside and out, and all the
passengers dressed in the first style of fashion,
and enjoying themselves tremendously. I found
no such place as Timpson's now—no such bricks
and rafters, not to mention the name—no such
edifice on the teeming earth. Pickford had come
and knocked Timpson's down. Pickford had not
only knocked Timpson's down, but had knocked
two or three houses down on each side of
Timpson's, and then had knocked the whole into one
great establishment, with a pair of big gates,
in and out of which, his (Pickford's) waggons
are, in these days, always rattling, with their
drivers sitting up so high, that they look in at
the second floor windows of the old fashioned
houses in the High-street as they shake the town.
I have not the honour of Pickford's acquaintance,
but I felt that he had done me an injury,
not to say committed an act of boyslaughter, in
running over my childhood in this rough manner;
and if ever I meet Pickford driving one of
his own monsters, and smoking a pipe the while
(which is the custom of his men), he shall know
by the expression of my eye, if it catches his,
that there is something wrong between us.

Moreover, I felt that Pickford had no right
to come rushing into Dullborough and deprive
the town of a public picture. He is not Napoleon
Bonaparte. When he took down the transparent
stage-coach, he ought to have given the
town a transparent van. With a gloomy
conviction that Pickford is wholly utilitarian and,
uninmaginative. I proceeded on my way.

It is a mercy I have not a red and green lamp
and a night-bell at my door, for in my very young
days I was taken to so many lyings-in that I
wonder I escaped becoming a professional martyr
to them in after-life. I suppose I had a very
sympathetic nurse, with a large circle of married
acquaintances. However that was, as I continued
my walk through Dullborough, I found many
houses to be solely associated in my mind with
this particular interest. At one little green-grocer's
shop, down certain steps from the street,
I remembered to have waited on a lady who had
had four children (I am afraid to write five,
though I fully believe it was five) at a birth.
This meritorious woman held quite a Reception
in her room on the morning when I was introduced
there, and the sight of the house brought
vividly to my mind how the four (five) deceased
young people lay, side by side, on a clean cloth
on a chest of drawers: reminding me by a homely
association, which I suspect their complexion to
have assisted, of pigs' feet as they are usually
displayed at a neat tripe-shop. Hot caudle was
handed round on the occasion, and I further
remembered as I stood contemplating the green-
grocer's, that a subscription was entered into
among the company, which became extremely
alarming to my consciousness of having pocket-
money on my person. This fact being known to
my conductress, whoever she was,l was earnestly
exhorted to contribute, but resolutely declined:
therein disgusting the company, who gave me
to understand that I must dismiss all expectations
of going to Heaven.

How does it happen that when all else is
change wherever one goes, there yet seem, in
every place, to be some few people who never
alter? As the sight of the greengrocer's house
recalled these trivial incidents of long ago, the
identical greengrocer appeared on the steps,
with his hands in his pockets, and leaning his
shoulder against the door-post, as my childish
eyes had seen him many a time; indeed, there
was his old mark on the door-post yet, as if
his shadow had become a fixture there. It
was he himself; he might formally have been
an old-looking young man, or he might now
be a young-looking old man, but there he
was. In walking along the street, I had as yet
looked in vain for a familiar face, or even a
transmitted face; here was the very greengrocer
who had been weighing and handling baskets on
the morning of the reception. As he brought
with him a dawning remembrance that he had
had no proprietary interest in those babies, I
crossed the road, and accosted him on the
subject. He was not in the least excited or