hin twenty miles.

"People always care least about what they have just at hand," said he.
"I dare say, if I were to ask you, you have never seen a glass-bottle
blown, or a tea-tray painted?"

"If I have," said Margaret, "I know many ladies in Birmingham who have
not."

"You will not be surprised, then, if you find some ladies in Deerbrook
who do not ride, and who can tell you no more of the pretty places near
than if they had been brought up in Whitechapel. They keep their best
sights for strangers, and not for common use. I am, in reality, only a
visitor at Deerbrook. I do not live here, and never did; yet I am
better able to be your guide than almost any resident. The ladies,
especially, are extremely domestic: they are far too busy to have ever
looked about them. But I will speak to Mr Grey, and--"

"Oh, pray, do not trouble Mr Grey! He has too much business on his
hands already; and he is so kind, he will be putting himself out of his
way for us; and all we want is to be in the open air in the fields."

"`All you want!' very like starlings in a cage;" and he looked as if he
was smiling at the well-known speech of the starling; but he did not
quote it. "My mother is now saying that Mr Hope finds time for
everything: and she is right. He will help us. You must see Hope, and
you must like him. He is the great boast of the place, next to the new
sign."

"Is the sign remarkable, or only new?"

"Very remarkable for ingenuity, if not for beauty. It is `The Bonnet so
Blue:'--a lady's bonnet of blue satin, with brown bows, or whatever you
may call the trimming when you see it; and we are favoured besides with
a portrait of the milliner, holding the bonnet so blue. We talk nearly
as much of this sign as of Mr Hope; but you must see them both, and
tell us which you like best."

"We have seen Mr Hope. He was here yesterday evening."

"Well, then, you must see him again; and you must not think the worse of
him for his being praised by everybody you meet. It is no ordinary case
of a village apothecary."

Margaret laughed; so little did Mr Hope look like the village
apothecary of her imagination.

"Ah, I see you know something of the predilection of villagers for their
apothecary,--how the young people wonder that he always cures everybody;
and how the old people could not live without him; and how the poor
folks take him for a sort of magician; and how he obtains more knowledge
of human affairs than an