“But let us now, if you please, Mr Seymour, suspend our researches: recollect," said the vicar, "that your birds are, as yet, scarcely fledged; and they will, therefore, make greater advances by short flights frèquently repeated, than by uninterrupted progression."

We heartily concur in this opinion, and shall, therefore, terminate the chapter.

CHAPTER VI.

As the maiden ladies of Overton were regaling themselves with a sociable dish of tea and chat, and, like many other cackling old women, discussing the mysteries of "Table-turning" and "Spiritrappings," (17,) the conversation was abruptly interrupted by the appearance of a chariot-and-four, that passed along the road with luxurious speed, and which, as Miss Kitty Ryland declared, announced, by the dignified suavity of its roll, that the personage it conveyed must be of superior rank.

"Those," exclaimed she, "who cannot at once distinguish such 'spirit-stirring' sounds from the discordant rattle of a plebeian chaise, deserve to wear the ears of Midas."

This extraordinary subtlety of Miss Ryland's ears is said to have been conferred upon them in her early days by those universal promoters of bodily vigour, air and exercise, of which they had received the combined advantage by the ingenious habit of listening to whispers through a certain pneumatic apparatus, familiarly termed a keyhole. In farther proof of the fidelity and alertness of her auditory establishment, we may just state, that, on passing Doseall's shop, she never failed to distinguish, by the sound of the mortar, whether the medicines under preparation were designed for the stomachs of the rich or the poor. The vicar even admitted the correctness of her discrimination, for he had himself observed that the pestle beat dactyls in one case, and spondees in the other.

While the carriage was passing the window, the maiden companions were breathless with wonder, each catching a glance from the countenance of her neighbour, which heightened as it were, by reflection, the surprise depicted on her own.

"Overton,” exclaimed Miss Noodleton, "is doubtless by this time honoured by the arrival of some distinguished stranger; but who he is, or what may be the object of his visit, I am at a loss to divine."

"Pooh !" cried Miss Puttle; "what a fuss is here about a green carriage and four hack horses! I doubt not but that it has conveyed some visitor to the vicar: had the Seymours expected any company, I must have heard of it yesterday."

"To the vicar!" exclaimed Miss Phyllis Tapps; "and pray, Miss Puttle, allow me to ask whether you ever heard of the peacock nestling with the crow?"

"Or of the eagle taking up its abode in an ivy-bush?” vociferated Miss Ryland.

Conjectures were vain, and the "weird sisters" determined to consult their omens; prior to which, however, it was judged expedient to see and question Ralph Spindle, whom Dr Doseall employed on the arrival of a stranger, as certain insects are said to use their "feelers" to discover the approach of any prey that may serve them as food.

The stranger was soon discovered to be a Major Snapwell, a rich and eccentric old bachelor, who had served in various campaigns in different parts of the globe, and received a competent number of wounds in the defence of his king and country. His age was within an easy distance of sixty. His fortune was reported to be large, and it was said that he had not any near relative to enjoy the reversion, since his nephew had perished about two years before by shipwreck. The circumstances that led to this disastrous event were believed to have so affected the veteran as to have occasioned a very serious illness, and a consequent state of despondency, for which his physicians advised a constant change of scene; so that he had been rambling about the Continent during the last year and a half, accompanied only by his faithful servant Jacob Watson, who was as much attached to the Major as was ever a Newfoundland dog to his master.

Such was the information derived from Annette, the vicar's housekeeper: what proportion of fiction was mingled with its truth, the reader will probably soon be able to discover. It is, however, necessary he should be early informed that this veteran officer received his education at Harrow, and had afterwards extended his classical scholarship at Cambridge, where he was remembered as the successful candidate for the Seatonian Prize Poem.

"Well, Jacob," said the Major, as his trusty but asthmatic valet was leisurely buttoning on the long gaiters of his master the morning after his arrival, "what do you hear about this village of Overton ? Are there any sociable neighbours? I like the country; it is beautiful, Jacob, and the air appears mild: it promises to be the very place to rekindle the sparks of my expiring constitution; and should you, at the same time, get your broken-winded bellows mended, my vital flame might, perhaps, burn a little brighter. But tell me, what do you hear of it, Jacob?”

"Why, and please you, Major, I just now met an old crony of mine, Mrs Annette Brown, at the Devil and the Bag of Nails

"And pray, Jacob," exclaimed the Major, "who taught you to speak thus irreverently of the village blacksmith ?"

"The village blacksmith ! Lord love you, Sir, it is the sign of the village alehouse!"

“Then it is a very odd one; but go on with your story.”

"As I was saying, Major, I met an old acquaintance who is housekeeper to Mr Twaddleton, a bachelor gentleman, and the vicar of the parish. She tells me her master is downright adored in the place : though he must needs be a queer mortal, for she says he is so fond of antics that he won't suffer a mop or broom in his house, lest, I suppose, it should spoil the hopping of the fleas, and put an end to the fly's rope-dance upon a cobweb."

"Jacob, Jacob, you are a wag, and had better go and offer your services to this merry parson; although, I fear, your asthmatic pipes would prove but a sorry accompaniment to his capering. But psha! -fiddlesticks!-stuff and nonsense!-who ever heard of a vicar being fond of antics ?-you are imposed upon, Jacob."

66 I am sure that how Annette told me as much. Ay, and she said he had all sorts of curiosities in his parlour-such as grinning faces, dogs with three heads, rusty swords, and I do not know what besides." "I see it!-see it all plainly!" exclaimed the Major; "and your story has so delighted me that I could almost dance myself. This respectable clergyman," thought he, "is, doubtless, an antiquary, a virtuoso—what a delightful companion will he prove! And a bachelor like myself!—what tête-à-têtes do I anticipate!"

66

Jacob," exclaimed the Major, " 'you should have said that the vicar was fond of, or, to speak more correctly, devoted to antiques, not to antics. But, tell me whether there are any other agreeable persons in this village?"

"There's the squire and his family," answered the valet. "The name, the name, Jacob?"

"Squire Seymour, and please you, Major."

"Seymour, Seymour!" repeated the Major; "I seem to know that name let me remember-surely he was of Trinity ?"

The Major's cogitations, however, were abruptly cut short by the entrance of the servant-maid, who informed him that Mr Vicar Twaddleton had called.

"I beg that Mr Twaddleton may be admitted.-Jacob, place a chair."

"Mr Twaddleton," said the Major, as he advanced towards the door to meet his visitor, "I feel obliged and honoured by your kind attention. As a perfect stranger, I could scarcely have expected this civility; but your village surrounded as it is by all the softer charms of Nature, is calculated to impress the hearts of its inhabitants with a kindred amenity. The inhabitants are, doubtless, much attached to their country."

"Proverbially so: never was Ulysses more attached to his Ithaca!" "Nor, if I may judge from my kind reception," observed the Major, was Telemachus more courteous to strangers!"

"We all rejoice at the arrival of visitors," continued Mr Twaddle

ton; "and, as vicar of the parish of Overton, I should consider myself criminally deficient in my duty were I to suffer a respectable stranger to depart from us without his having received the mark of my respect, and the tender of my humble but cordial hospitality. I am an old-fashioned person, Major Snapwell, and am well aware that these antiquated notions do not altogether accord with the cold and studied forms of the present day."

"Mr Twaddleton," exclaimed the delighted Major, "I thank thee, most heartily thank thee, in the name of all those whose hearts have not yet been benumbed by worldly indifference. Sit thee down-I abhor ceremony-and let me beg of you not to take offence at a question to which I am most anxious you should give me an answer. Are you, my dear Sir, as I have just reasons for supposing, an ANTIQUARY?"

"I am undoubtedly attached to pursuits which might have favoured such a report."

"I thought so; I guessed as much. Then give me your hand; we must be friends and associates. If there be a pursuit on earth to which I am devotedly attached, it is to that of antiquities; and, let me add," continued the Major with increasing animation, for, like bottled beer, he was the brisker for warmth, "that if there be a literary character to whom the professor of arms ought to feel superior gratitude, it is to the antiquary. How many victories, what valiant deeds must have perished in the memory of mankind, but for the kind offices of the virtuoso, under whose vivifying touch the laurels of the victor, thus rescued from the scythe of Time, have bloomed with renovated vigour; while the splendid trophies of his achievements must have been scattered as dust to the winds, had he not collected their remains, and piously deposited them in his mausoleum for their preservation!"

It were difficult to say, whether astonishment at the Major's warmth, delight at the congenial sentiments he had expressed, or admiration at the language in which they had been conveyed, was the feeling predominant in the vicar's mind, nor do we deem it necessary to inquire; suffice it to say, that, from the conversation of a few minutes, these two gentlemen felt incited to a mutual regard by sympathy and congeniality of soul; so true is it that, while we may be strangers with the companions of years, we may become friends with the strangers of yesterday!

"Major Snapwell,” said the vicar, "I may truly mark this day in the diary of my life in red letters; your society will add to my happiness, by extending the sphere of my literary intercourse. When may I expect the pleasure of your company at the vicarage? I am really impatient to show you my coins and a few dainty morsels of virtù.”

"I shall be at your service to-morrow," answered the Major; "but