the donkey, I live quite alone.”  “And have you always lived alone?” The old man emptied his cup, and his heart being warmed with the mead, he told his history, which was simplicity itself.  His father was a small yeoman, who, at his death, had left him, his only child, the cottage, with a small piece of ground behind it, and on this little property he had lived ever since.  About the age of twenty-five he had married an industrious young woman, by whom he had one daughter, who died before reaching years of womanhood.  His wife, however, had survived her daughter many years, and had been a great comfort to him, assisting him in his rural occupations; but, about four years before the present period, he had lost her, since which time he had lived alone, making himself as comfortable as he could; cultivating his ground, with the help of a lad from the neighbouring village, attending to his bees, and occasionally riding his donkey to market, and hearing the word of God, which he said he was sorry he could not read, twice a week regularly at the parish church.  Such was the old man’s tale.

When he had finished speaking, he led me behind his house, and showed me his little domain.  It consisted of about two acres in admirable cultivation; a small portion of it formed a kitchen garden, while the rest was sown with four kinds of grain, wheat, barley, peas, and beans.  The air was full of ambrosial sweets, resembling those proceeding from an orange grove; a place which though I had never seen at that time, I since have.  In the garden was the habitation of the bees, a long box, supported upon three oaken stumps.  It was full of small round glass windows, and appeared to be divided into a great many compartments, much resembling drawers placed sideways.  He told me that, as one compartment was filled, the bees left it for another; so that, whenever he wanted honey, he could procure some without injury to the insects.  Through the little round windows I could see several of the bees at work; hundreds were going in and out of the doors; hundreds were buzzing about on the flowers, the woodbines, and beans.  As I looked around on the well-cultivated field, the garden, and the bees, I thought I had never before seen so rural and peaceful a scene.

When we returned to the cottage we again sat down, and I asked the old man whether he was not afraid to live alone.  He told me that he was not, for that, upon the whole, his neighbours were very kind to him.  I mentioned the fellow who had swindled him of his donkey upon the road.  “That was no neighbour of mine,” said the old man, “and, perhaps, I shall never see him again, or his like.”  “It’s a dreadful thing,” said I, “to have no other resource, when injured, than to shed tears on the road.”  “It is so,” said the old man; “but God saw the tears of the old, and sent a helper.”  “Why did you not help yourself?” said I.  “Instead of getting off your ass, why did you not punch at the fellow, or at any rate use