There were good gentle souls in Mallingford, too, of course, as, Heaven be praised, there are in most places in this wicked world; but the prevailing spirit of the little town, the placid stupidity, unrelieved, save by occasional snappish outbursts of party-spirit, the ludicrous pretension and would-be exclusiveness of its reigning families, the airs of the half-educated daughters of the same—these things and many other of a similar nature would need a keener pen than mine to do justice to them! Very laughable, very contemptible no doubt, were it not that from so surely passing away, is giving place, not merely to another, but to a better state of things. It may seem exaggerated to speak so gravely of the foibles and absurdities of county town society as it existed in Mallingford some few years ago, as possibly it still exists in other yet more “conservative” places of the kind. If it appear so I can only say that to me it comes naturally to speak seriously of things I have myself felt strongly—absurdities if you like, but worse than absurdities, for they have sprung from deep rooted error, and their influence, again, has, in its turn, been an evil one. Besides which, it is necessary to a right comprehension of my heroine’s life and character, that the nature of the social atmosphere into which at this critical period of her history she was thrown, should be, to some extent at least, understood and justly appreciated. Over the cobble stones, in the fly from the King’s Arms, Marion was rattled to her destination. “The Cross House,” as it was called, its name from its vicinity to the old market place (now, wonderful to say, deserted in favour of a more convenient site), in the centre of which, though no longer surrounded by booths and stalls, still stood in respectable decay the pride of Mallingford, the venerable cross. Queer things that ancient monument must have seen in its day; strange sights if all be true that is to be read concerning it, in the “Guide to Mallingford and its neighbourhood,” changes many and marvellous even in this sturdy little stronghold of conservatism! Of its antiquity, there can be no doubt, for it was already aged in 1641, when by some special good luck, or over-sight on the part of the fanatic destroyers, it escaped the fate of its fellow monuments.