One of the drollest and completest of Mr. Meredith’s odd characters is the uncle of these girls, Anthony Hackbut, a mythical millionaire, understood by the rustic mind to be vaguely residing in London, and amassing quantities of gold and genial banknotes. The family look to him for elevation and fortune. He passes for a miser because he refused to advance the farmer one hundred pounds in times of difficulties, and sowed ill-will upon the death of the girl’s mother by urging as plea his position of great trust in a wealthy bank that prevented him from assisting at his sister’s funeral; nobly offering, in his opinion, to defray half the funeral expenses. He referred to funds as worldly things, and hoped to meet his family in heaven, ‘where brotherly love, as well as money, was ready made, and not always in the next street.’ He ended by a hint of susceptibility to the friendliness of an invitation to spend a vacation in Kent, and offered one of his nieces the post of housekeeper, should she wish to see London, and make acquaintance with the world. The seductions were fruit at stalls, oysters and whelks and winkles, pictures in shops, sights of muslin and silks, and rides on omnibuses, with an occasional glimpse of the military on horseback. Dahlia is surpassingly fair, and the question of her departure is submitted to grave deliberation in an assembly composed of Farmer Fleming, held between a desire to secure the miser’s money and a dread of London for his daughter; Robert, the sedate and handsome assistant, in love with the dark Rhoda; Mrs. Sumfit, the cook, a very fat and loving woman; and Master Gammon, an aged foreman, with the cast of eye of an antediluvian lizard, who remarked ‘that he never had much opinion of London.’ Policy and Dahlia’s entreaties prevail, and the fair girl goes up to the great city forebodingly, we believe. It is like a division of souls for the two sisters so devotedly attached. A lovely miniature is sent down to Rhoda in secret, who marvels at its beauty and at the secrecy. And the next paragraph brings down to Kent old Anthony Hackbut. The scene is inimitable. The queer old fellow, with a disconcerting reserve, tosses Dahlia off upon a charge of giddiness, drinks his beer, because he has not paid for it, propounds an arithmetical problem to Master Gammon, who retorts ‘that he is paid to work, and not to think,’ and continues to eat his dumplings to the fret of nerves of the watchers impatiently waiting for news of Dahlia. We learn of vestiary elegances and temper, and of an old man left to take his tea alone; and, like Rhoda, we understand the sadness of it and, unlike her, suspect its meaning. It is the sadder because of the farmer’s pride in his handsome daughters, so greatly superior to their station, and of a conviction that he will prove a cruel judge when the hour for mercy comes. Rhoda goes to London to rejoin her darling, her one fear lest this sumptuously-attired young woman should be