afterwards at
her labour!

Poor baggage! after all her crosses and difficulties, when she marries,
what is it but to exchange a life of comparative ease and comfort for
one of toil and uncertainty? Perhaps, too, the lover, for whom, in the
fondness of her nature, she has committed herself to fortune's freaks,
turns out a worthless churl, the dissolute, hard-hearted husband of low
life; who, taking to the alehouse, leaves her to a cheerless home, to
labour, penury, and child-bearing.

When I see poor Phoebe going about with drooping eye, and her head
hanging "all o' one side," I cannot help calling to mind the pathetic
little picture drawn by Desdemona:--

"My mother had a maid, called Barbara;
She was in love; and he she loved proved mad
And did forsake her; she had a song of willow,
An old thing 'twas; but it expressed her fortune,
And she died singing it."

I hope, however, that a better lot is in reserve for Phoebe Wilkins, and
that she may yet "rule the roast," in the ancient empire of the
Tibbetses! She is not fit to battle with hard hearts or hard times. She
was, I am told, the pet of her poor mother, who was proud of the beauty
of her child, and brought her up more tenderly than a village girl ought
to be; and ever since she has been left an orphan, the good ladies at
the Hall have completed the softening and spoiling of her.

[Illustration: Slingsby and Phoebe]

I have recently observed her holding long conferences in the churchyard,
and up and down one of the lanes near the village, with Slingsby the
schoolmaster. I at first thought the pedagogue might be touched with the
tender malady so prevalent in these parts of late; but I did him
injustice. Honest Slingsby, it seems, was a friend and crony of her late
father, the parish clerk; and is on intimate terms with the Tibbets
family. Prompted, therefore, by his good-will towards all parties, and
secretly instigated, perhaps, by the managing dame Tibbets, he has
undertaken to talk with Phoebe upon the subject. He gives her, however,
but little encouragement. Slingsby has a formidable opinion of the
aristocratical feeling of old Ready-Money, and thinks, if Phoebe were
even to make the matter up with the son, she would find the father
totally hostile to the match. The poor damsel, therefore, is reduced
almost to despair; and Slingsby, who is too good-natured not to
sympathise in her distress, has advised her to give up all thoughts of
yo