been hired at Carnarvon, by a strange gentleman who arrived in the mail the night before, and would be with her the next morning. The news of this important event spread quickly through the village, and numerous were the conjectures which followed. Dame Grey had several visitors in the course of the evening to look at these wonderful packages, to conjecture what each might contain, and to endeavour to learn from her what could make a gentleman, so grand as Mr. Mordaunt must be, to come and live in her cottage: to all which the good woman could only reply, that Mr. Ross had told her that the gentleman was coming for his health, and she dared say Mr. Ross knew: at all events, it was nothing to her: the gentleman had agreed to give her twelve shillings a week for her two rooms, which was four shillings more than she expected; but then, to be sure, she was to cook for him, and they all knew she was as pretty a cook as Madam Ross herself; for that, when she lived with 'Squire Davies--The mention of 'Squire Davies was enough for the whole audience; they walked off one by one, and left her to admire and wonder at her lodger's grand packages by herself, dreading nothing more than the tedious tales they knew they must encounter if they staid, now Dame Grey had begun to talk of the days when she lived with 'Squire Davies. Dame Grey not knowing very well what to do respecting her lodger's rooms, which wanted linen, and many other articles she supposed the packages might contain, thought it would be but right, and the proper compliment, if she was to step up and ask Madam Ross and Miss Joanna, and Miss Ellen, if she were there, what she had better do. Mrs. Ross advised her on no account to open any of the parcels, and said, if Mr. Mordaunt did not arrive in time the next day, she would furnish her with linen proper for his bed and table, till his own could be opened: at the same time declaring her readiness to go with Dame Grey, and see that things were put a little out of a litter; to which obliging act she was certainly prompted by the same sort of curiosity as had influenced her poorer neighbours, to see the packages, and judge by their weight and size what they might contain. No one who has ever lived in a small village will wonder at this: such a one will know that no one creature ever appears in a gown of a different colour, or a hat of a different size from what has been seen before, without exciting the utmost curiosity and animadversion; that a wedding, a burial, or a christening, will afford conversation to the whole neighbourhood for many hours; and that if one should be convicted of living, in the most simple concerns, at all different from the generality, oddity, absurdity, stinginess, and, finally, madness, will probably be imputed to him: think then what a feast for the gossips Mr. Mordaunt's parcels must have presented; for by the time Dame Grey and Mrs. Ross arrived, two or three more were in waiting to take a peep at them.