e of
flax, from the gouty, uneven, clumsy, shiny fabric, ycleped whited-brown,
to the delicate commodity of Lisle, used for darning muslin. I think
I was never more astonished, from the mere force of habit, than when,
on asking for thread, I was presented, instead of the pretty lattice-wound
balls, or snowy reels of cotton, with which that demand is usually
answered, with a whole drawerful of skeins peeping from their blue papers
--such skeins as in my youth a thrifty maiden would draw into the
nicely-stitched compartments of that silken repository, a housewife, or
fold into a congeries of graduated thread-papers, "fine by degrees, and
beautifully less." The very literature of Hazelby is doled out at the
pastry cook's, in a little one-windowed shop kept by Matthew Wise. Tarts
occupy one end of the counter, and reviews the other; whilst the shelves
are parcelled out between books, and dolls, and ginger, bread. It is a
question, by which of his trades poor Matthew gains least; he is so
shabby, so threadbare, and so starved.

Such a town would hardly have known what to do with a highly informed and
educated surgeon, such as one now generally sees in that most liberal
profession. My friend, John Hallett, suited it exactly. His predecessor,
Mr. Simon Saunders, had been a small, wrinkled, spare old gentleman,
with a short cough and a thin voice, who always seemed as if he needed
an apothecary himself. He wore generally a full suit of drab, a flaxen
wig of the sort called a Bob Jerom, and a very tight muslin stock; a
costume which he had adopted in his younger days in imitation of the
most eminent physician of the next city, and continued to the time of
his death. Perhaps the cough might have been originally an imitation
also, ingrafted on the system by habit. It had a most unsatisfactory
sound, and seemed more like a trick than a real effort of nature. His
talk was civil, prosy, and fidgetty: much addicted to small scandal,
and that kind of news which passes under the denomination of
tittle-tattle, he was sure to tell one half of the town where the
other drank tea, and recollected the blancmanges and jellies on a
supper-table, or described a new gown, with as much science and
unction as if he had been used to make jellies and wear gowns in
his own person. Certain professional peculiarities might have
favoured the supposition. His mode of practice was exactly that
popularly attributed to old women. He delighted in innocent
re