tle case of things intended for the occupation of that
super-abundant leisure which ladies often have in the country. In the
days with which we are concerned there were not so many activities
possible as now. The village and parish were not so well looked after.
There was no hospital nearer than the county hospital at Highcombe, and
the "Union" was in the parish of Standingby, six miles off, too far to
be visited; neither had it become the fashion then to visit hospitals
and workhouses. The poor of the village were poor neighbours. The sick
were nursed, with more or less advantage, at home. Beef-tea and chicken
broth flowed from the Warren, whenever it was necessary, into whatsoever
cottage stood in need, and very good, wholesome calf's-foot jelly,
though perhaps not quite so clear as that which came from the Highcombe
confectioners. Everything was done in a neighbourly way, without
organisation. Perhaps it was better, perhaps worse. In human affairs
it is always so difficult to make certain. But at all events the young
ladies had not so much to do. And lawn tennis had not been yet invented,
croquet even was but in the mild fervour of its first existence. Schools
of cookery and ambulances were unknown. And needle-work, bead-work,
muslin-work, flourished. Crochet, even, was still pursued as a fine-art
occupation. That period is as far back as the Crusades to the sympathetic
reader, but to the Miss Warrenders it was the natural state of affairs.
They went to Mrs. Bagley's very often, in the dulness of the afternoon,
to turn over the Berlin wools and the crochet cottons, to match a shade,
or to find a size they wanted. The expenditure was not great, and it
gave an object to their walk. "I must go out," they would say to
each other, "for there is that pink to match;" or "I shall be at a
stand-still with my antimacassar; my cotton is almost done." It was not
the fault of Minnie and Chatty that they had nothing better to do.

Mrs. Bagley was old, but very lively, and capable, even while selling
soap, or sugar, or a piece of bacon, or a tin tea-kettle, of seeing
through her old spectacles whether the tint selected was one that matched.
She was a woman who had "come through" much in her life. Her children
were all grown up, and most of them dead. Those who remained were
married, with children of their own, making a great struggle to bring
them up, as she herself had done in her day. She had two daughters,
widows,--one in the vil