saw that something in the narrative had gone wrong, and hastened to mollify his rising ire by reiterating the soft-hearted Phoebe’s merit and fidelity, and her great unhappiness; when old Ready-Money suddenly interrupted her by exclaiming, that if Jack did not marry the wench, he’d break every bone in his body!  The match, therefore, is considered a settled thing:  Dame Tibbets and the housekeeper have made friends, and drank tea together; and Phoebe has again recovered her good looks and good spirits, and is carolling from morning till night like a lark.

But the most whimsical caprice of Cupid is one that I should be almost afraid to mention, did I not know that I was writing for readers well experienced in the waywardness of this most mischievous deity.  The morning after the wedding, therefore, while Lady Lillycraft was making preparations for her departure, an audience was requested by her immaculate hand-maid, Mrs. Hannah, who, with much primming of the mouth, and many maidenly hesitations, requested leave to stay behind, and that Lady Lillycraft would supply her place with some other servant.  Her ladyship was astonished:  “What!  Hannah going to quit her, that had lived with her so long!”

“Why, one could not help it; one must settle in life some time or other.”

The good lady was still lost in amazement; at length, the secret was gasped from the dry lips of the maiden gentlewoman:  “She had been some time thinking of changing her condition, and at length had given her word, last evening, to Mr. Christy, the huntsman.”

How, or when, or where this singular courtship had been carried on, I have not been able to learn; nor how she has been able, with the vinegar of her disposition, to soften the stony heart of old Nimrod:  so, however, it is, and it has astonished every one.  With all her ladyship’s love of match-making, this last fume of Hymen’s torch has been too much for her.  She has endeavoured to reason with Mrs. Hannah, but all in vain; her mind was made up, and she grew tart on the least contradiction.  Lady Lillycraft applied to the Squire for his interference.  “She did not know what she should do without Mrs. Hannah, she had been used to have her about her so long a time.”

The Squire, on the contrary, rejoiced in the match, as relieving the good lady from a kind of toilet-tyrant, under whose sway she had suffered for years.  Instead of thwarting the affair, therefore, he has given it his full countenance; and declares that he will set up the young couple in one of the best cottages on his estate.  The approbation of the Squire has been followed by that of the whole household; they all declare, that if ever matches are really made in heaven, this must have been; for that old Christy and Mrs. Hannah were as evidently formed to be linked together, as ever were pepper-box and vinegar-cruet.