orn."

A very successful afternoon was one I spent at a sale at North
Littleton. I remember the beautiful spring day, and the old
weather-worn grey house in an orchard of immense pear-trees covered
with sheets of snowy blossom. I secured a Jacobean elm chest with
well-carved panels, a Jacobean oak chest of drawers on a curious
stand, a complete tea set of Staffordshire ware, including twelve cups
and saucers, teapot, and other pieces, with Chinese decoration; four
Nankin blue handleless tea-cups, a Delft plate, and a Battersea enamel
patch-box. My bill was a very moderate one, but the executor who had
the matter of the sale in hand was well pleased that these old family
relics had passed into the possession of someone who would value them,
and not to careless and indifferent neighbours, and was more than
satisfied with the amount realized. Next morning, as a token of his
satisfaction, he brought me a charming old brass Dutch tobacco box,
with an oil painting inside the lid, of a smoker enjoying a pipe.

I have seen some amusing incidents at sales of household goods in
remote places; incredulous smiles as to the possibility of the
usefulness of anything in the shape of a bath generally greeted the
appearance of such an article, and on one of these occasions an
ancient, with great gravity, and as an apology for its existence,
remarked that it was "A very good thing for an invalid!" I am reminded
thereby of an old-fashioned hunting man in Surrey, who was astonished
to hear from a friend of mine that he enjoyed a cold bath every
morning. He "didn't think," he said, "that cold water was at all a
good thing--_next to the skin_!"

CHAPTER XXV.

DIALECT--LOCAL PHRASEOLOGY IN SHAKESPEARE--NAMES--STUPID PLACES.

"Our echoes roll from soul to soul."
--_The Princess_.

Compulsory education has eliminated many of the old words and phrases
formerly in general use in Worcestershire, and is still striving to
substitute a more "genteel," but not always more correct, and a much
less picturesque, form of speech. When I first went to Aldington I
found it difficult to understand the dialect, but I soon got
accustomed to it, and used it myself in speaking to the villagers.
Farrar used to tell us at school, in one of the resounding phrases of
which he was rather fond, that "All phonetic corruption is due to
muscular effeminacy," which accounts for some of the words in use, but
doe