vain. He respired with difficulty--it was equally ineffectual in
awakening sympathy. Seats are once again to be had in any part of our
parish church, and the chapel-of-ease is going to be enlarged, as it is
crowded to suffocation every Sunday!

The best known and most respected among our parishioners, is an old lady,
who resided in our parish long before our name was registered in the list
of baptisms. Our parish is a suburban one, and the old lady lives in a
neat row of houses in the most airy and pleasant part of it. The house
is her own; and it, and everything about it, except the old lady herself,
who looks a little older than she did ten years ago, is in just the same
state as when the old gentleman was living. The little front parlour,
which is the old lady's ordinary sitting-room, is a perfect picture of
quiet neatness; the carpet is covered with brown Holland, the glass and
picture-frames are carefully enveloped in yellow muslin; the table-covers
are never taken off, except when the leaves are turpentined and
bees'-waxed, an operation which is regularly commenced every other
morning at half-past nine o'clock--and the little nicknacks are always
arranged in precisely the same manner. The greater part of these are
presents from little girls whose parents live in the same row; but some
of them, such as the two old-fashioned watches (which never keep the same
time, one being always a quarter of an hour too slow, and the other a
quarter of an hour too fast), the little picture of the Princess
Charlotte and Prince Leopold as they appeared in the Royal Box at Drury
Lane Theatre, and others of the same class, have been in the old lady's
possession for many years. Here the old lady sits with her spectacles
on, busily engaged in needlework--near the window in summer time; and if
she sees you coming up the steps, and you happen to be a favourite, she
trots out to open the street-door for you before you knock, and as you
must be fatigued after that hot walk, insists on your swallowing two
glasses of sherry before you exert yourself by talking. If you call in
the evening you will find her cheerful, but rather more serious than
usual, with an open Bible on the table, before her, of which 'Sarah,' who
is just as neat and methodical as her mistress, regularly reads two or
three chapters in the parlour aloud.

The old lady sees scarcely any company, except the little girls before
noticed, each of whom has always a regula