cheeses, and marble slabs held the mounds of fresh butter, waiting to be made into rolls or pats by the rosy-cheeked dairymaid, and the pans were standing covered with thick, rich, yellow cream, such as Mrs Llewellyn was famed for all the country side. This dairy led across a covered-in yard to the baking-house, and in the centre of the yard stood a well, centuries old, with an Elizabethan cross surmounting its quaint, arched roof. In fact, there was no end to the curiosities in Panty-cuckoo Farm, and ladies with purses full of money had tried over and over again to induce the farmer and his wife to part with some of their bits of blue china, and yellow lace, and old wood carving, that they might carry them back to adorn their drawing-rooms in Kensington or Westminster. But the Llewellyns were steadfast in their courteous refusals. No amount of coin would have made them sell the little relics that adorned their rooms, and had come down to them from unknown ancestors. They would as soon have sold their own flesh and blood. There was something about these people above the general run of farmers and their wives. Countrified they necessarily were, but not vulgar nor common, and even in the lowly position they occupied they managed to infuse so much dignity that even their superiors recognised it, and met it with respect. It was rather an important occasion with Mrs Llewellyn when we are first introduced to her, for her daughter Hetty was coming, with her husband and several of her new relations, to take tea at Panty-cuckoo Farm for the first time since her return from London, and her mother was eager to do her honour. Mrs Llewellyn had evidently been a very handsome woman in her youth, and as she moved about her rooms, clad in her gala dress of grey merino, with a white muslin kerchief pinned across her bosom, and a large cap covering her iron-grey hair, it was evident from whom poor Nell had inherited the beauty that had proved such a misfortune to her. Tall and upright, with a fresh colour in her face, and her hazel eyes beaming with expectation and pride in her table, Mrs Llewellyn looked quite a picture as she moved about her room and arranged the feast for her expected guests. The brown bread and fresh butter, the cream and new-laid eggs, the honeycomb and home-made preserves, the cut ham and water-cresses, made up a picture of beauty that any housewife might have been proud of; and Farmer Llewellyn chuckled with satisfaction as he sat in one of the window settles and watched the tempting display. ‘That’s right, wife!’ he exclaimed, ‘stuff them well. You’ll get more friends through their stomachs than you’ll ever do through their hearts.’ ‘Oh, Griffith,’ she replied, ‘that’s a poor way of looking at it; not but what a good meal’s a good thing after all. But I shouldn’t like the Owens to go home and say they hadn’t had enough to eat. And it’s our Hetty’s first visit, too,’ and here Mrs Llewellyn heaved a deep sigh.