o need to be in
service, and all my friends a-begging of me to leave. I only stays to
oblige Mr. St. John."

It was, I think, chiefly in the way I had of thinking aloud that I
said, more to myself than to her, "I'm sure I don't know what makes
him keep you, you do it so very badly. But perhaps you're
respectable."

The half-crown had been unexpected, and this blow fairly took away her
breath. Before her rage found words, we were gone.

I did not fail to call on Mr. and Mrs. Buckle. The shop looked just
the same as when I was there with Mrs. Bundle. One would have said
those were the very rolls of leather that used to stand near the door.
The good people were delighted to see me, and proud to be introduced
to Mr. Andrewes and my tutor. I had brought some little presents with
me, both from myself and Nurse Bundle, which gave great satisfaction.

"And where is Jemima?" I asked, as I sat nursing an imposing-looking
parcel addressed to her, which was a large toilette pincushion made
and ready furnished with pins for her by Mrs. Bundle herself.

"Now, did you ever!" cried Mrs. Buckle in her old style; "to think of
the young gentleman's remembering our Jemima, and she married to Jim
Espin the tinsmith this six months past."

So to the tinsmith's I went, and Jemima was, as she expressed it,
"that pleased she didn't know where to put herself," by my visit. She
presented me with a small tin lantern on which I had made some remark,
and which pleased me well. I saw the drawer of farthing wares also,
and might have had a flat iron had I been so minded; but I was too old
now to want it for a plaything, and too young yet to take it as a
remembrance of the past.

I asked Mrs. Buckle about the two little beaver-bonneted ladies, but
she did not help me much. She did not remember them. They might be Mr.
St. John's little girls; he had buried four. A many ladies wore beaver
bonnets then. This was all she could say, so I gave up my inquiries.
It was as we were on our way from the Buckles to join the rest of the
party that Mr. Clerke caught sight of the quaint little village
church, and as churches and church services were matters of great
interest to us just then, the two parsons, the churchwarden, five
elder scholars and myself got the key from the sexton and went to
examine the interior.

It was an old and rather dilapidated building. The glass in the east
window was in squares of the tint and consistency of "bottle glass,"
exc