'I thought I would take a look,' said Lily calmly; 'and they all got about me, saying I had on Mr Cloudesly's colours, and'---- 'So you did wear his colours,' cried Miss Croply; 'and I'm proud of you for keeping up your principles! Mrs Prior, I always knew there was something great in that girl!' 'It's just the bonnet my aunt sent me,' said Lily; 'and I didn't mean'---- 'Never mind what you meant,' cried Miss Croply, in whose mind policy as well as romance might have been at work at that moment: 'we don't want no excuses.' In short, Lily was made a heroine that evening. Her father and mother thought themselves called upon to rebuke, but it was done rather in the encouraging style, especially when Mr Cloudesly gave the company to understand that henceforth he was to be considered Lily's humble servant. Isn't that the proper phrase, readers? And Miss Prior, who had not her composure to regain, coloured slightly, and finished the matter by saying: 'Dear me!' I have heard from herself, that she had put on her aunt's bonnet, and come quietly through the lane, when it struck her that she would like to see what was going on, as Miss Croply would allow no looking out at the low creatures; so nearer and nearer to the street did Lily wend, till a boy--are not boys at the bottom of all mischief?--raised the shout that she was wearing Mr Cloudesly's colours; the phalanx then surrounded her, and improvised the triumph which we witnessed. The _Tattleton Chronicle_ was remarkably full upon it. I think, till this day, Lily is regarded as a devoted heroine by all the Tories of Tattleton, for there are Tories there still. But we had a splendid wedding at our church, under Mr Stopford's very nose, before he went to parliament. I can vouch for old Tom and Miss Croply leading off a country-dance the same evening in Prior Cottage; but it is two-and-twenty years ago. There is a tombstone over the old man and his wife. Miss Croply has left her bank deposit to three nieces. Sommerset Cloudesly grew less fidgety long ago, and some people say less genteel, but he brews the best beer, and makes the best cider now in the county. There are ten children in the brick-house, but Mrs Cloudesly looks as composed as ever; and when her husband reads to her at work on the winter nights, as he dutifully does, in the newspapers, she sometimes remarks, at the close of long parliamentary debates, to which Sommerset was always partial: 'What trouble those people have in that House of Commons, my love! Wasn't it really good for you that you lost the Tattleton election?' SAILORS' HOMES.