"Aye, but I warrant," cried Mrs. Gubbles, with an arch smile, "I warrant Mifs faw somebody better worth looking at. There was young Mr. Sydney just come home from the colleges; I saw him with his father a going to the parfonage just before Mifs went out; one would be aftonished to fee what a great, tall, proper man he is grown. Good lack! it was but yesterday, as I think, fince he was quite a little baby; and now to be fure he is one of the moft handfomeft and most genteeleft young men I ever feed in my life. Don't you think fo, Mifs?" I don't know, I did not fee him.' "Not fee him! well that is the most extraordinary thing as ever I knew. He could not poffibly come back without my feeing him. You know I am quite in the way, and notices every body as goes by t not a foot on the ftreet, I warrant you, but I knows on. There is that heathenish fet as come to Mr. Glib's, who are all (heaven preserve us!) faid to be no better better than fo many atheists; I seed them go by this morning; there they are, all living at rack and manger. A good hot fupper laft night, and a fine dinner today. I wonder what will come on it at laft! A pretty thing, truly, for folks in their way to entertain at fuch a rate! If it was only their own neighbours and towns-folks, it would be a different thing; but to be throwing away their fubftance upon authors and fuch fcum, it is a fhame to hear of it!". I should fuppofe, ma'am,' said Julia, with fome warmth, that Mr. Glib knows his own affairs beft: I believe the party you allude to, are very refpectable people, and do Mr. Glib great honour by their vifit.' * "It may be fo, Mifs. They may be very refpectable people, to be fure, for aught I know; though I don't think it's the moft refpectable thing in the world, for people to be fneaking about the ftreets ftreets all night that have no honeft calling to take them out of their warm beds." • Do the people at Mr. Glib's keep fuch late hours?' inquired Capt. Delmond. "I dont know for all of 'em," replied the loquacious Mrs. Gubbles, "but betwixt four and five this morning, as my husband was going to Mrs. Dunstan's, (who, as I was telling you, as Miss there came in, has got a fine thumping boy) he paffed that there tall one just at your garden-gate, I don't know his name, but there he was a perambulating through the street; and I leave you to judge, whether at that late hour it was likely he had been building churches ?" In the loud laugh to which Mrs. Gubbles was excited by her own wit, Julia felt no inclination to join. The confequences of Vallaton's having been seen in his retreat from the arbour, filled her with terror and difmay. To conceal the inquietude of her mind, fhe made a a pretence a pretence for quitting the room, and did not return till the vifitor was gone, and dinner put upon the table. In places far removed from the great and crowded theatre of the metropolis, the fcenes of life (if we may be permitted to carry on the hacknied allufion) come fo near the eye, that every little wheel and pulley becomes vifible to the audience. The actors are there indeed so few, and fo feldom do any incidents occur in the rural drama of fufficient importance to excite a general intereft, that if the good people in a country town were not to find a fubstitute for more important articles of intelligence in the minutiae of family transactions, they muft either be condemned to filence, or laid under the dreadful neceffity of cultivating internal refources. No fuch miferable alternative awaits the happier inhabitant of the metropolis. There day unto day furnishes an everlafting fund for talk, and the in fatiable fatiable thirft for news is gratified by fuch a fucceffion of great events, that though petty scandal may ferve as a relish, it is by no means an absolute neceffary of life. In the country, where the appetite for news is not a whit lefs voracious, it is obliged to put up with a more limited bill of fare: the minutest action of every neighbour is there, indeed, very liberally ferved up, while conjectures on its cause and its confequences ferve as fauce to the entertainment. The valetudinary state of Captain Delmond's health, which deprived him of those resources for killing time to which he had formerly been accustomed, made him glad to fill the vacuum by any piece of intelligence that offered: even a visit from Mrs. Gubbles was on this account acceptable, as no one poffeffed more information concerning the state of affairs in the village and its neighbourhood than that good lady. Wherever she went, she generally |