At the distance of some five or six miles from Bramleigh, and to the south-west of that village, lies an extensive tract of bare, treeless country, which some years ago was almost wholly uninclosed--if we except a small farm, the property of the Church--together with some few scattered patches, selected on account of their situation, and inclosed with low stone walls, in order to entitle them to the denomination of fields. Owing to the abundance of gorse, or whins, with which the uncultivated parts of this district were overgrown, it had obtained the characteristic name of “Whin-moor;” while, in order to cover the barrenness of the place, and to exalt it somewhat in the eyes of strangers, the old farm itself, to which I have alluded, was dignified with the title of Snitterton Lodge, the seat of Miss Maria Sower-soft, its present tenant. Early one morning in the spring season, Mr. Longstaff mounted his horse in high glee, and jogged along the miry by-roads which led towards this abode, with the intention of consulting Miss Sowersoft upon a piece of business which to him was of the very greatest importance. He had ascertained on the preceding evening that Miss Sowersoft was in want of a farming-boy; one whom she could have cheap, and from some little distance. Indeed, from a combination of circumstances unfavourable to herself, she found some difficulty in getting suited from the immediate neighbourhood where she was known. If the boy happened to be without friends to interfere between him and his employer, all the better. Peace would thereby be much more certainly secured; besides that, it would be all the greater charity to employ such a boy in a place where, she well knew, he would never lack abundance of people to look after him, and to chastise him whenever he went wrong. In fact, Miss Maria herself regarded the situation as so eligible in the matters of little work, large feeding, and excellent moral tutorage, that she held the addition of wages to be almost unnecessary; and, therefore, very piously offered less than half the sum commonly given elsewhere. Mr. Longstaff had been acquainted with Miss Sowersoft for some years, and had enjoyed various opportunities of becoming acquainted with her character. He knew very well, that if he had possessed the power to make a situation for Master Colin Clink exactly after the model of his own fancy, he could not have succeeded better in gratifying his own malice than he was likely to do by getting the boy placed under the care of the mistress of Snitterton Lodge.