and
to play with the head of his cudgel. Lady Lillycraft saw that
something in the narrative had gone wrong, and hastened to mollify his
rising ire by reiterating the soft-hearted Phoebe's merit and
fidelity, and her great unhappiness; when old Ready-Money suddenly
interrupted her by exclaiming, that if Jack did not marry the wench,
he'd break every bone in his body! The match, therefore, is considered
a settled thing: Dame Tibbets and the housekeeper have made friends,
and drank tea together; and Phoebe has again recovered her good looks
and good spirits, and is carolling from morning till night like a
lark.

But the most whimsical caprice of Cupid is one that I should be almost
afraid to mention, did I not know that I was writing for readers well
experienced in the waywardness of this most mischievous deity. The
morning after the wedding, therefore, while Lady Lillycraft was making
preparations for her departure, an audience was requested by her
immaculate hand-maid, Mrs. Hannah, who, with much primming of the
mouth, and many maidenly hesitations, requested leave to stay behind,
and that Lady Lillycraft would supply her place with some other
servant. Her ladyship was astonished: "What! Hannah going to quit her,
that had lived with her so long!"

"Why, one could not help it; one must settle in life some time or
other."

The good lady was still lost in amazement; at length, the secret was
gasped from the dry lips of the maiden gentlewoman: "She had been some
time thinking of changing her condition, and at length had given her
word, last evening, to Mr. Christy, the huntsman."

How, or when, or where this singular courtship had been carried on, I
have not been able to learn; nor how she has been able, with the
vinegar of her disposition, to soften the stony heart of old Nimrod:
so, however, it is, and it has astonished every one. With all her
ladyship's love of match-making, this last fume of Hymen's torch has
been too much for her. She has endeavoured to reason with Mrs. Hannah,
but all in vain; her mind was made up, and she grew tart on the least
contradiction. Lady Lillycraft applied to the Squire for his
interference. "She did not know what she should do without Mrs.
Hannah, she had been used to have her about her so long a time."

The Squire, on the contrary, rejoiced in the match, as relieving the
good lady from a kind of toilet-tyrant, under whose sway she had
suffered for years. Instead of thwarting the af