within, and gain some further idea of the character of my new neighbours, I stood still before the child, and, addressing myself to it in as agreeable a manner as I could, I offered it some sugar-candy, which I was then taking for my cough. Had I been in my own lane, the mother would have looked pleased, and said to the little one, "Where is your curtsey?" or, Why do you not thank the gentleman?" The mother here did, indeed, raise her eyes at the sound of my voice, but no smile appeared on her face, and she looked back again at her work.

"How do you like your new house?" said I.

"It is well enough," answered she, without troubling herself to raise her eyes again, "but very inconvenient for clean water."

"Do you come from a pleasant part of the country?"

"I do not know," answered she.

I put another question, and received the same sort of a reply, and I was considering whether I should make any more attempts to carry on the conversation, when she raised her voice, and turning to a dressy looking person who was sitting near her, she said to her, "And what did Lucy Price answer to you then, Mrs. Snow?"

"She answered as she always does," replied Mrs. Snow," she always thinks for herself."

As I turned away I said to myself, “The law of kindness is not upon your lips; the wife of the poorest collier would not have given me the recep

tion you have done;" and as my feelings were working within me I met William Finch, and relating what had passed, "How is it," said I to him, "that persons who aim at being so much better than their neighbours should be so uncivilized in their manners? Sympathy with the feelings of others, I was always taught, was the first rule of common civility."

"Have you yet to learn," said he, "that these are the days of lawlessness and selfishness? There is not a bond, sacred or human, which the wicked ones of the earth are not trying to burst through. And alas! the sad influence of this spirit is spreading through all classes of society; and there are many, I believe, who are not selfish in their hearts, who are selfish in their manners from mere imitation. I have been conversing with our parson," added he, "upon the spirit of the Laodicean age of the Church, and you would be interested in hearing his sentiments upon the subject."

Here we parted, and here I should end my chapter, before I go to pastures fresh, only, while we are on the subject of new settlements, I shall just mention, that young Maxwell was persuaded to receive into his house, as lodger, an elderly Irishman of the name of O'Grady, who had an occupation in the works. And much about the same time a young man, called Jabez Reynolds, took Mrs. Davies's parlour: he did not come from that part of the country whence

the bulk of the work-people proceeded, nor did he arrive exactly at the same time as they did. He was a preacher, of some denomination, but William Finch did not consider him as belonging to his society. O'Grady was supposed by some persons to be a Papist.

CHAPTER VII.

NEW ACQUAINTANCE.

If the spring and summer had been a busy scene at Queenswood, the autumn and winter certainly were not less so; and as weeks and months passed away, new ideas, new difficulties, new dilemmas crowded upon me. But I must take things in an orderly, quiet manner, and not hurry you or myself.

In the first place, I must begin with telling you that our new curate was very well approved of; and that our congregation in the evening was increased by our new neighbourhood, especially by well-dressed persons; and many of those whom we should heretofore, at least from their outward appearance, have denominated ladies and gentlemen, issued from the commonest houses. Lucy Price and her father came at first only as a kind of matter of propriety, if I may guess from their manner, and the young lady, I was told, merely to oblige her father; but after a time Lucy would often come twice a day, and seemed deeply inte

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rested in all that passed; but when mentioning the subject to the Widow Paterson, "I fear," she answered, “that Lucy Price is a very capricious person, and not to be depended upon." But more of Lucy hereafter.

For a long while I continued to hear the gossip of the place as usual, when I chose to hear it, from John Maxwell: but after a time he appeared to avoid me, and there was frequently an unaccustomed cloud seen on his brow; and as this did not seem to proceed from any intentional incivility, I felt a kind of uneasiness about the poor man lest all should not be going on well with his family. Another thing I remarked, was, that Betsy Davies began, by degrees, to be less intimate with my niece Susan, and about that time she became less regular at Church, and at last entirely forsook it. There was also a falling off in some others of our regular congregation, though not of our more serious members, one excepted. And some of our Sunday-school children took their departure from the school; and I was informed that a new Sunday-school was opened in the square, most of the members of which school were turned out at our service-time. Some few of these children came to Church, but the rest were playing about and making no small disturbance at a time when we wished for particular quiet; and these little truants inspired some of their neighbours with the feeling that it was a hardship, and not a privilege, to be taken to