Among soft Kentish meadows sleeps the little metropolis of Darnley-on-Downe. It lies on the grassy plain like a neat poached egg on a vast green plate, and, over all, the blue vault of heaven makes a domed lid. The Downe meanders placidly at the foot of its gardens, and comfortable little Georgian houses speak of agelong ease and decent leisure. Darnley-on-Downe has no local peer, no local palace; rank and fashion, therefore, are represented only by these dignified dwellings of red brick, each enclosed in shrubberies of rose and laurel and lilac, each tenanted by some family well known for generations in Darnley-on-Downe. As Cranford was, as Highbury was, so also was Darnley-on-Downe--placid, happy and exclusive, intolerant of all new-comers and of all change. Mrs. John succeeded Mrs. Joshua, and Mr. Reuben Mr. James; and no outsider was ever permitted to disturb the orderly dynasties that so long had ruled in the little town. Crowns fell, but the serenity of Darnley-on-Downe remained unruffled, and the collapse of the Corsican ogre took no higher rank in general conversation than the misdoings of Mrs. Blessing’s Matilda, or the strange theft of Miss Minna Dadd’s Leghorns. So, talking only to themselves, and only of themselves, the aristocracy of Darnley-on-Downe passed inconspicuously from the nursery to the grave, through the leisurely old days when the peace of the country contrasted so strongly with the restless misery of the great cities, and, in the absence of halfpenny morning papers, only rare rumours filtered down into the provinces of a young Queen gradually making her seat secure on a dishonoured and endangered throne. Nowadays Cranford, probably, plays pit, and motors hoot beneath the walls of Donwell Abbey. Nowadays clash and clangour fill the one main street of Darnley-on-Downe, and the Georgian houses are being swept away to make room for glassy palaces of art-nouveau design. But, in the days when Fortune swooped so suddenly on the Dadds, only peace and slumber haunted the Market Place and St. Eldred’s.