nefit of his evidence by her
London-bred clumsiness with him. For it takes quite a different
handling, and a different mode of outset, to get on with the London
working class and the laboring kind of the country; or at least it
seemed to me so.

Now my knowledge of Jacob Rigg was owing, as might be supposed, to Betsy
Strouss, who had taken the lead of me in almost every thing ever since
I brought her down from London. And now I was glad that, in one point
at least, her judgment had overruled mine--to wit, that my name and
parentage were as yet not generally known in the village. Indeed, only
Betsy herself and Jacob and a faithful old washer-woman, with no roof to
her mouth, were aware of me as Miss Castlewood. Not that I had taken any
other name--to that I would not stoop--but because the public, of its
own accord, paying attention to Betsy's style of addressing me, followed
her lead (with some little improvement), and was pleased to entitle me
"Miss Raumur."

Some question had been raised as to spelling me aright, till a man of
advanced intelligence proved to many eyes, and even several pairs of
spectacles (assembled in front of the blacksmith's shop), that no other
way could be right except that. For there it was in print, as any one
able might see, on the side of an instrument whose name and qualities
were even more mysterious than those in debate. Therefore I became "Miss
Raumur;" and a protest would have gone for nothing unless printed also.
But it did not behoove me to go to that expense, while it suited me very
well to be considered and pitied as a harmless foreigner--a being who
on English land may find some cause to doubt whether, even in his own
country, a prophet could be less thought of. And this large pity for me,
as an outlandish person, in the very spot where I was born, endowed me
with tenfold the privilege of the proudest native. For the natives of
this valley are declared to be of a different stock from those around
them, not of the common Wessex strain, but of Jutish or Danish
origin. How that may be I do not know; at any rate, they think well of
themselves, and no doubt they have cause to do so.

Moreover, they all were very kind to me, and their primitive ways amused
me, as soon as they had settled that I was a foreigner, equally beyond
and below inquiry. They told me that I was kindly welcome to stay there
as long as it pleased me; and knowing how fond I was of making pictures,
after beholding m