Nor was it only the babies who loved Mrs. Birkin. Little girls brought their dolls for her to dress, and little boys, even bad little boys, whose grubby hands were against every other man, woman, or child in the village, refrained from pillaging Mrs. Birkin’s garden, and had been known to weed it for her, all for love. For months past, in fact, ever since our young lady’s engagement was announced, Mrs. Birkin had pondered the great question of the Bonnet. She had not had a new bonnet for six years. Four years before that, again, she had indulged in a widow’s bonnet, in which, on Sundays, she did honour to the memory of the departed Birkin; until the crape grew green with age, and our young lady herself suggested that the time had come when Mrs. Birkin’s somewhat mitigated woe might find expression in head-gear less indicative of intense gloom. In our village, except of "a Sunday," the question of costume is extremely simple. The men wear corduroy; the women, lilac or pink print, with sunbonnet to match. There are those who wish that the wearing of these uniforms extended to Sundays,—the villagers, in the week, are so much more in harmony with the beautiful, grey, old houses,—but those who, like "Squoire," love these people well, would not for the world debar them from the wearing of that finery dear to the heart of woman in cottage and castle alike. Squoire drives a coach, and often on Saturday afternoons he will pull up in the very middle of our one street and shout, "Any one for the town?" And sure enough, three or four eager damsels and matrons bustle out of their cottages, are packed in as inside passengers, and away goes the coach to distant "Ziren," where country folk can see the shops and make their purchases, Squoire bringing them and their bundles home in the evening again, and never a penny to pay for carriage hire. Three times lately had Mrs. Birkin made this journey to "Ziren," rightly so called from its many fascinations. She had flattened her nose against the plate-glass windows of that stately shop in the market-place where there were displayed hats of the most bewitching beauty, and fabrics so delicate that Mrs. Birkin fairly caught her breath at the mere idea of any one daring to wear them. It was undoubtedly an entrancing vision, that shop; but then nothing was priced, and there were no bonnets in that window, and for a bonnet Mrs. Birkin had come to look.