Who, for instance, was the May Shore ("Fairy” broidered in a bracket underneath, was her pet name), who finished yonder elaborate example on her tenth birthday, the 1st of May—­doubtless that is where she got her name—­in the year 1702, and on what far shore does she keep her birthdays now?  None will ever know.  She has vanished into the great sea of mystery whence she came, and there she lives and has her being, forgotten upon earth, or sleeps and sleeps and sleeps.  Did she die young or old, married or single?  Did she ever set her children to work other samplers, or had she none? was she happy or unhappy, was she homely or beautiful?  Was she a sinner or a saint?  Again none will ever know.  She was born on the 1st of May, 1692, and certainly she died on some date unrecorded.  So far as human knowledge goes that is all her history, just as much or as little as will be left of most of us who breathe to-day when this earth has completed two hundred and eighteen more revolutions round the sun.

But the kind of collector alluded to can best be exemplified in the individual instance of him from whom the manuscript was obtained, of which a somewhat modernized version is printed on these pages.  He has been dead some years, leaving no kin; and under his will, such of his motley treasures as it cared to accept went to a local museum, while the rest and his other property were sold for the benefit of a mystical brotherhood, for the old fellow was a kind of spiritualist.  Therefore, there is no harm in giving his plebeian name, which was Potts.  Mr. Potts had a small draper’s shop in an undistinguished and rarely visited country town in the east of England, which shop he ran with the help of an assistant almost as old and peculiar as himself.  Whether he made anything out of it or whether he lived upon private means is now unknown and does not matter.  Anyway, when there was something of antiquarian interest or value to be bought, generally he had the money to pay for it, though at times, in order to do so, he was forced to sell something else.  Indeed these were the only occasions when it was possible to purchase anything, indifferent hosiery excepted, from Mr. Potts.

Now, I, the Editor, who also love old things, and to whom therefore Mr. Potts was a sympathetic soul, was aware of this fact and entered into an arrangement with the peculiar assistant to whom I have alluded, to advise me of such crises which arose whenever the local bank called Mr. Potts’s attention to the state of his account.  Thus it came about that one day I received the following letter:—­

Sir,

The Guv’nor has gone a bust upon some cracked china, the ugliest that ever I saw though no judge.  So if you want to get that old tall clock at the first price or any other of his rubbish, I think now is your chance.  Anyhow, keep this dark as per agreement.

Your obedient, Tom.

(He always signed himself Tom, I suppose to mystify, although I believe his real name was Betterly.)