Mr. Woodburn was a quiet gentleman, of somewhat above the middle stature, now approaching fifty. He would not at that time of day have been addressed by letter as esquire, though every man who is not exactly a sweep or a costermonger is so now. He would be written down, however, Leonard Woodburn of Woodburn, gent., in any public document, or county summons on judicial service. Mr. Woodburn might be seen daily riding on a good sturdy horse about his farm, and in harvest time he did not hesitate to take a hand at raking or forking in the hay-field, or binding after his reapers in the corn-field; and on such occasions his children would turn out for a frolic, rather than for serious work. His harvest done, Leonard Woodburn shot over his own land, accompanied by his son George, now just come of age, and who was treading in his father’s steps, being fond of both agricultural pursuits and of the gun. Mrs. Woodburn was a fine, large, comely woman, who, though as well educated as the ladies generally of her day, and fond of hearing books read in winters’ evenings rather than reading them herself, had her heart and pride in her house and her dairy. Churning, cheese-making, looking after her fowls, her eggs, her calves, and pigs, and pigeons, her ducks, geese, turkeys, guinea-fowls, her fruit both of garden and orchard, storing it up, or preserving it; these were the great business of her daily life, and afforded her a perpetual satisfaction. It was a real delight to see Mrs. Woodburn amid her daily duties of this kind, with her handsome, sunny, smiling face, and tall and ample but active figure, directing her maids, or helping even in an emergency, or, to instruct a novice, kneeling on a soft bass, leaning over the side of the large brass pan, with her fair, full, and finely rounded arms bared to near the shoulder, crushing down the curd in the whey, or crumbling it and pressing it into the vat. Or you might see her surrounded by a large flock of glossy pigeons in the farm-yard, who had descended from their tower surmounting one of the buildings to receive her daily bounty. Not that Mrs. Woodburn deemed it her express duty to feed any of the farm-yard creatures; that belonged to the men-folk, who not only foddered horses and cows, but fed pigs and poultry, and the pigeons came down quickly and put in for their share with the numerous and scuffling family of ducks, geese, turkeys, and all the rest of them.