who had levanted so unceremoniously
beyond the reach of their good graces.

V.--MISTRESS BETTY TRAVELS DOWN INTO SOMERSETSHIRE.

A formal but friendly letter came to Mistress Betty, when her life was
one of long dusty exertion, and her heart was very thirsty and parched.
The shabby-genteel world and the tradesman's life, unless in exceptional
cases of great wealth, were different things a hundred and fifty years
ago from what they are now. The villas at Twickenham, the rural
retreats, the gardens, the grottos, the books, the harpsichords, the
water-colour drawings, belonged to the quality, or to the literary
lions: to Lady Mary or Pope, Horace Walpole or his young friends the
Berrys. The half-pay officer's widow, the orphan of the bankrupt in the
South Sea business, the wife and family of the moderately flourishing
haberdasher, or coach-builder, or upholsterer--the tobacconist rose far
above the general level--were cooped up in the City dwellings, and
confined to gossip, fine clothes, and good eating if they could afford
them. A walk in the City gardens, a trip to Richmond Hill, and the
shows, were their pastimes, and Mr. Steele's 'Christian Hero,' 'An
Advice to a Daughter,' and De Foe's 'History of the Plague,' were their
mental delectation.

But Mistress Betty had the soul of a martyr; she had resigned herself to
sinking down into the star of cousin Ward's set, who went on holidays to
the play--mostly honest, fat and fatuous, or jaunty and egotistical
folk, who admired the scenery and the dresses, but could no more have
made a play to themselves than they could have drawn the cartoons. She
helped cousin Ward, not only with her purse, but with a kinswoman's
concern in her and hers: she assisted to wash and dress the children of
a morning; she took a turn at cooking in the middle of the day; she
helped to detain Master Ward at the tea-table, and to keep his wig and
knee-buckles from too early an appearance and too thorough a soaking of
his self-conceit and wilfulness at his tavern; and she heard the lads
their lessons, while she darned their frills before supper.

Then arrived the summons, over which Mistress Betty, a little worn by
voluntary adversity, shed "a power" of joyful tears. To travel down into
Somersetshire, and stroll among the grass in the meadows, and the gorse
on the commons, which she had not seen for twelve months; to feed the
calves, and milk the cows, and gather the eggs, and ride Dapple, and tie