Now it may easily be conceived that Mr. Hartland, such as we have depicted him, though himself unperturbed, caused an active stir in the neighbourhood of his new habitation. The tradespeople all gave testimony to his being "a pure substantial man, who paid for every thing he had like a true gentleman." The regularity of his attendance at church gained him the rector's marked approval; while the apothecary sighed as he contemplated the damask of a cheek which seemed to hold out little hope of requiring aid from the leech's skill, or the rosy conserves of his shop. But the chief commotion was among the female part of the community, who, some for themselves, and others for their daughters, set a longing eye on Henbury's "crisped shades and bowers," where revelled "the spruce and jocund spring." On Sundays a general determination of gay hats and bonnets was observable towards that part of the church which was occupied by Mr. Hartland, where such a stream of floating ribbons might be remarked converging to his pew, as to authorise the belief that a current of the electrid fluid set in that direction, and drew the silken pennants thus to a point. The new comer was visited and invited by all the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, and declared to be an acquisition wherever he appeared. "Upon my word, a very sensible steady man is Mr. Hartland," was the usual panegyric pronounced by his hosts, while the old ladies protested that he played a capital game of whist, and the young confessed that though he had passed the first season of youth, he had not seen out its bloom. Now it so happened that in the centre of the market-place, and in a house distinguished by two bay windows so prominent and closely set, that they looked like the eyes of a prawn, and served as spectacles to her who dwelt within, there lived a maiden yclept Jemima Ferret, whose name remarkably coincided with her character and vocation. Nature had originally bestowed upon her features divested of all attraction, and the small-pox had fatally confirmed the decree which had been issued in her cradle against the chances of a husband. Jemima had attained the age of fifty without a single proposal, though her favourite adage, and one which she repeated with such emphasis as to prove that she believed it in her heart, was, that "every Jack has his Jill."