Now being, as has been said before, of distinguished countenance and costume, he already had made a tender impression upon the heart of Polly Bottler; and when she had been very good and conquered the alphabet up to P the pig--at which point professional feeling always overcame the whole family--the reward of merit selected by herself would sometimes be a little visit to Bonny, as the cart came back from Findon. There is room for suspicion, however, that true love may not have been the only motive power, or at least that poor Bonny had a very formidable rival in Jack the donkey: inasmuch as the young lady always demanded, as the first-fruit of hospitality, a prolonged caracole on that quadruped, which she always performed in cavalier fashion, whereto the formation of her lower members afforded especial facility. Now one afternoon towards Allhallows day, when the air was brisk and the crisp leaves rustled, some under foot and some overhead, Mr. Bottler, upon his return from Storrington, with four pretty porkers in under his net, received from his taciturn daughter that push on his right knee, whose import he well understood. It meant--“We are going to see Bonny to-day. You must turn on this side, and go over the fields.” “All right, little un,” the pigman answered, with never-failing smile. “Daddy knows as well as you do a’most; though you can’t expect him to come up to you.” Polly gave a nod, which was as much as any one ever expected of her all the time she was out of doors. At home she could talk any number to the dozen, when the mood was on her; but directly she got into the open air, the size of the world was too much for her. All she could do was to stand, and wonder, and have the whole of it going through her, without her feeling anything. After much jolting, and rattling, and squeaking of pigs at the roughness of sod or fallow, they won the entrance of Coombe Lorraine, and the hermitage of Bonny. That exemplary boy had been all day pursuing his calling with his usual diligence, and was very busy now, blowing up his fire to have some hot savoury stew to warm him. All his beggings and his buyings, &c., were cast in together; and none but the cook and consumer could tell how marvellously they always managed to agree among themselves, and with him. A sharp little turn of air had set in, and made every rover of the land sharp set; and the lid of the pot was beginning to lift charily and preciously, when the stubble and bramble crackled much. Bonny ensconced in his kitchen corner, on the right hand outside his main entrance, kept stirring the fire, and warming his hands, and indulging in a preliminary smell. Bearing ever in mind the stern duty of promoting liberal sentiments, he had felt, while passing an old woman’s garden, how thoroughly welcome he ought to be to a few sprigs of basil, a handful of onions, and a pinch of lemon-thyme; and how much more polite it was to dispense with the frigid ceremony of asking.