“Well, I am surprised. To be sure, the blessed baby’s hair’s red, too—it be easy accounted for now, bain’t it? seein’ as Private Griggs’s hair be red. I wonder how you did come to make sich a mistake, Mrs. Frizzell.” “I wonder!” said the poor woman. “My mind were fair muddled up, I do think, and I did get a lot o’ queer notions in my head. There’s another thing now; his name bain’t Griggs.” “Lard! you do give I quite a turn. However did you come to think it were? And what mid his name be, Mrs. Frizzell?” Mrs. Frizzell opened her mouth, shut it again, and swallowed down what seemed to be a very unpleasant morsel; finally she said, fixing her impenetrable eyes upon her neighbour’s face— “His name be Barton—Gunner James Barton. ’Ees, that be the name.” “Barton!” ejaculated Mrs. Cross, in utter bewilderment; then, after a momentary pause, she continued—“It bain’t so very like Griggs, be it?” For once Mrs. Frizzell’s lively imagination was at fault; she had no explanation to offer. “Nay,” she said feebly, “it bain’t.” UP AT THE ’LOTMENTS. OLD Joseph Frisby stood at his garden gate one fine bright evening in early spring. A dirty, disreputable-looking old vagabond was he, a frequenter of the “Pure Drop,” “The True Lovers’ Knot,” “The Three Choughs,” and every such place of entertainment within reach of his tottering old legs. This evening he was perforce sober, for he had not possessed a penny that he could call his own for several months, and the landlords of the above-named hostelries had unanimously declined to give him credit. As he stooped over the rickety gate, his lean bent old figure clad in a tattered linen coat that had once been white, and nether garments of inconceivably ancient and patched corduroy, he looked forlorn and miserable enough; there was even a certain pathos in his unwashed, unshaven face, and his small bleared eyes peered anxiously out of the network of furrows which surrounded them. Every now and then he placed his hand over his ear and turned his head as though listening, and by-and-by the long expected sound for which he had been waiting made itself heard. The back door of the neighbouring cottage closed with a bang, and a man came quickly round the house and down the tiny flagged path through the little garden, which was already bright with primroses and double daisies, and opened a gate similar to that on which Joseph was leaning. He was a wiry elderly man, with a fresh-coloured face framed in iron-grey whiskers. His garments were very much like those worn by Frisby, except that they possessed the merit of being clean. He carried a basketful of potatoes, and a spade and fork rested on his shoulder. “Good evenin’, neighbour,” said Joseph, straightening himself, and looking eagerly at him. “Ye be goin’ up to the ’lotments, I d’ ’low?” “Aye,” said the other, glancing round, but without slackening his pace. “I’m off to the ’lotments—pretty late, too; I must hurry.”