ppended to the token,)
dropped from my shawl in the midst of the high road; and of shawls
themselves, there is no end to the loss. The two prettiest that ever
I had in my life, one a splendid specimen of Glasgow manufacture--a
scarlet hardly to be distinguished from Cashmere--the other a lighter
and cheaper fabric, white in the centre, with a delicate sprig, and
a border harmoniously compounded of the deepest blue, the brightest
orange, and the richest brown, disappeared in two successive summers
and winters, in the very bloom of their novelty, from the folds of
the phaeton, in which they had been deposited for safety--fairly blown
overboard! If I left things about, they were lost. If I put them away,
they were lost. They were lost in the drawers--they were lost out And if
for a miracle I had them safe under lock and key, why, then, I lost my
keys! I was certainly the most unlucky person under the sun. If there
was nothing else to lose, I was fain to lose myself--I mean my way;
bewildered in these Aberleigh lanes of ours, or in the woodland recesses
of the Penge, as if haunted by that fairy, Robin Good-fellow, who led
Hermia and Helena such a dance in the Midsummer Night's Dream. Alas!
that there should be no Fairies now-a-days, or rather no true
believers in Fairies, to help us to bear the burthen of our own mortal
carelessness.

It was not quite all carelessness, though! Some ill luck did mingle with
a great deal of mismanagement, as the "one poor happ'orth of bread"
with the huge gallon of sack in the bill of which Poins picked
Falstaff's pocket when he was asleep behind the arras. Things belonging
to me, or things that I cared for, did contrive to get lost, without my
having any hand in the matter. For instance, if out of the variety of
"talking birds," starlings, jackdaws, and magpies, which my father
delights to entertain, any one particularly diverting or accomplished,
more than usually coaxing and mischievous, happened to attract my
attention, and to pay me the compliment of following at my heels,
or perching upon my shoulder, the gentleman was sure to hop off. My
favourite mare, Pearl, the pretty docile creature which draws my little
phaeton, has such a talent for leaping, that she is no sooner turned out
in either of our meadows, than she disappears. And Dash himself, paragon
of spaniels, pet of pets, beauty of beauties, has only one shade of
imperfection--would be thoroughly faultless, if it were not for a sl