On returning, as usual, in the rear of the little congregation, I was slowly drawling along Church Row, and thinking what a pity it was that such good houses should be so falling out of repair, when down came the rain very heavily. I had just passed Mrs. Ringwood’s, and noticed that the parlour-blind wanted mending, and that Mrs. Ringwood, with a baby in her arms, was idly looking over it. I began to spread my shawl more completely over me, and was putting up my umbrella, when some one from behind called, “Mrs. Cheerlove! Mrs. Cheerlove!” The boy stopped the donkey, and said, “There’s Mrs. Ringwood a calling of you.” I looked round, and saw her, without her baby, standing on her door-step, with her light curling hair blowing in the wind, while she eagerly looked after me. “Do come in, ma’am,” cried she, with great good-nature, and colouring as she spoke. “It is raining quite fast! I am sure you ought not to be out in it.” The boy, at the same moment, took the matter into his own hands, by turning the donkey round, so that I was before her door the next minute. “I don’t think it will come to much,” said I, bowing and smiling. “I’m extremely obliged to you. _Pray_ don’t come into the rain.” “Oh, it won’t hurt me,” said she, now at my side, “and it _will_ hurt you. Do come in till it is over.” It was very good-natured of her. I made no more resistance, but alighted as quickly as my infirmities would permit, and entered the house just as the rain became a violent shower. I was turning round to speak to the boy, when I saw him drive off, at a good deal quicker pace than he drove _me_; and Mrs. Ringwood said, laughing, “I told him to come for you when the shower was over; otherwise, the chair would have been quite wet, and unfit for your use.” So I followed her into the parlour, where she had put the baby down on a sofa, in order that she might run out to me. “It was very lucky,” said she, “that I was looking over the blind.” My heart smote me for having called her, even to myself, idle; and I thanked her very gratefully for her kindness. She answered with a smile, and then left me for a moment or two alone with the baby. It was a long while since I had been alone with a baby; I looked at it with interest, and amused myself by making it smile. A casual glance round the room disappointed my expectations of its comforts and capabilities. It was smaller than I should have supposed it, and inelegantly contrived. No fitting up could have concealed this; but the fitting up was not very good. The carpet was showy and shabby, and did not harmonize with the paper. The room wanted papering and painting; but the window-curtains were conspicuously new, and made the rest of the furniture look still more worn. On the table lay _Punch_ and the _Athenæum_, and a smart cap in the process of making.