imaginable-by reading the story, which she accordingly commenced without further delay.

Rich in the Kitchen, poor in the Parlour.

On the confines of Worcestershire and Herefordshire, in a neighbourhood rendered in winter almost inaccessible through the deep roads of stiff red clay, is an ancient mansion called Stanbrook Court.

This building, which was from time immemorial the seat of a respectable family of the name of Vaughen, had been erected in the reign of William and Mary, and partook of that style of architecture which was fashionable in that period. The old gentleman who had entered into possession of the estate about the middle of the last century, had, at his death, left six children, with all of whom we shall become acquainted in the course of our narrative, although the affairs of one only will engage our particular attention.

Of these children, the eldest, a son, had been educated at home, and had spent the greater part of his youth in his father's stable and dog-kennel. At the period from which our narrative commences, he was more than fifty years of age, had been a widower some years, and had two sons, and as many daughters. He was generally denominated, in the country, Squire Vaughen, of Stanbrook Court, and was said to possess the best pack of fox-hounds in the county.

Two maiden sisters, viz. Mrs. Dorothea and Mrs. Penelope, who were nearest in age to the Squire, kept his house, which honourable station they had held ever since the death of his wife: and though they were neither of them remarkable for their good temper, yet, as their fortunes were small, and as they enjoyed in their brother's house some conveniences which they could not expect to find elsewhere, they contrived to accommodate themselves so far to his humours, that, during the course of their long residence with him, he had never actually told them to leave his house, although he not unfrequently had dropped hints which they might have interpreted to this purpose, had it suited their convenience so to do.

These ladies had all that pride and ignorance of the

world which is frequently found among persons who live in retirement and among their inferiors, and they were not without a variety of notable notions concerning that which they deemed proper and becoming in persons in a certain rank of life.

Their nieces, the Squire's daughters, whose education had been begun by their aunts, and finished at an ordinary but dashing boarding-school in a neighbouring town, were not different from the common run of young people who have been carelessly educated, and who mistake a certain air of easy confidence for gentility, excepting that they were infected with that kind of family pride and hauteur of manner which is now seldom exhibited in the world, and which would not be tolerated were such display attempted.

The second son of the old family of which the Squire was the elder, had been entered into the navy at an early age, and from that period had rarely visited his native place. This gentleman was always distinguished, when spoken of in the family, by the appellation of the Captain; and, as he was in the East India service at the time of which I am speaking, it was hoped that he would return home with some lacs of rupees; and, also, that he would then think himself either too old or too infirm to marry; as it is generally believed that those who go abroad live three years while their more quiet friends in England have added only twenty four months to their lives.

The fifth child of this family was a daughter, who having entered this world some years after her sisters, and being endowed with rather more beauty than her seniors, had been put forward to make her fortune by marriage. This lady had been seen by a young counsellor at an assize-ball at Hereford, and had been taken by him to London, where she had resided ever since, taking care to spend her husband's money as expeditiously as he obtained it, having acquired a vehement desire for the vanities and pomps of this world,

The youngest individual of this household was a son, who, having been early taken from his father's family, and weaned from the inelegant habits which there prevailed, by a pious uncle, who adopted and educated him, he, through the divine blessing, became a character as

eminently amiable as many of the other individuals of his family were forbidding. The Church had been the destination of this gentleman; and a family-living of a clear three hundred a year, together with a comfortable old house, had been deemed a handsome provision for him, being all that he obtained from his father, and which was far more, as his sisters often said, than they ever received; the aim of the family always having been to advance the eldest son at the expense of all the other children.

This last mentioned gentleman, whom we shall call Henry Vaughen, had in his youth possessed a very handsome person and a pleasing countenance; and being, as we have reason to think, a sincere Christian, it was impossible that he should retain any part of that pride which characterized the rest of the family. There was, however, one thing deserving of notice in the character of this gentleman-that at the same time that he seemed to be entirely without ambition or desire after the pomps and vanities of this world, he carefully cultivated and diligently sought, both for himself and his family, all its real elegances: not, indeed, those elegances which the milliner and goldsmith might supply; but those decorations of life which are for the most part equally within the reach of the poor and the rich, and which are frequently bestowed on those who love the Lord, without money and without price.

Among these, he enumerated all the graces of manner and of carriage, neatness of dress, the courtesies of speech, the interchange of elegant ideas, and the display of holy and amiable feelings. To these, he added a taste for literature, and an awakened perception of the beauties of nature: such as the glorious views of the rising and setting sun; and of the moon, travelling in her full-orbed splendour through the fleckered clouds, or moving, as a silver crescent, over the ebon brow of night; and of distant mountains, or solemn groves; and of waterfalls, sparkling in the shadowy glade; and of flocks and herds feeding on the peaceful lawn; and of those more minute and delicate beauties which, being created by infinite power, exist among the inferior tribes of animated creatures, or lie hid within the cups and bells of the little flowers of the forest.

Such objects as these were ever pleasing to this excellent man, and excited within him feelings of love and gratitude to the bountiful giver of all good; and it was his constant aim, while he endeavoured to inspire the minds of those about him with the admiration of these purer objects of taste, to lead them from the love of those things which have in themselves no actual excellence, and which are desired only because the passing fashions of the day may have given them a momentary importance, or because they have derived a more lasting weight from the envy, the ambition, and the covetousness of human nature.

Mr. Henry Vaughen cultivated this simple taste in himself and his family not merely from caprice, but with a religious view, in order that the pride of life and its empty distinctions might have the less influence over his and their minds, that they might have the full enjoyment of all the innocent delights within their reach, and might the more cheerfully acquiesce in the want of those pleasures and possessions which the Almighty thought fit to withhold: and so firmly were his own principles settled, with regard to these subjects, that, from the time he entered on his ministry, he was enabled to reject at once and decidedly every temptation which owed its allurements to any of the false notions of pride and vanity, by which thousands in this Christian country are entirely influenced, and by which many persons professing themselves to be set apart from the world are, nevertheless, affected, to a degree of which they have little idea.

At the age of twenty-four, Mr. Henry Vaughen took possession of the living to which allusion has been made. It was situated in a village about six miles from his brother's seat, and though it lay quite as deep in the clay as Stanbrook Court, it was, in reality, less recluse, owing to the residence of two great families at different ends of the parish, both of which attended the parish church. The first of these families was that of Sir Thomas Freeman, an ancient and respectable baronet; and the second that of Mr. Smith, a country gentleman, of no high connexions, indeed, but extremely rich.

Immediatly after his induction into this living, Mr. Henry Vaughen married a young lady, to whom he had

been long attached. This lady had a lovely exterior; she was pious, humble, and capable of relishing all the exalted and refined ideas of her husband; but her character by no means possessed the strength and firmness of his and though, when supported by him, she was capable of every exertion necessary in her situation, yet, when deprived of that support, she shrunk into comparative inaction and timidity.

Now, in order to make my story plain to the comprehension of my reader, it is necessary that I should enter into a more minute description of the parsonage-house to which Mr. Henry Vaughen brought his bride than may at first appear altogether requisite: as, however, I shall employ no more detail than the subject requires, I hope that this minuteness will be pardoned.

The parsonage belonging to the family-living bestowed on Mr. Vaughen as soon as he was admitted into priest's orders, stood in a large square garden inclosed by an old wall, at the two corners of which towards the front were old-fashioned summer-houses. The garden itself was laid out with much old-fashioned stiffness, but filled at the same time, with every kind of fruit and vegetable in rich and vast abundance. From the house to the front gate which opened into the village street was a straight gravel walk, wide enough to admit a carriage, and on each side were shrubs and flowers; this being the only part of the garden devoted to the purpose of ornament. The house itself was of brick, neatly plastered, and presenting in front two gable ends, whose large projecting windows were of small casements in framework of stone. These gable ends were united to each other by a line of flat roofing, which formed the centre of the house.

The entrance into the house was in this central part, through a hall, which opened on one side into a large old but handsome parlour, and, on the other, into a kitchen of equal size with the parlour, and which, if divested of the degrading consideration usually associated with the thought of a kitchen, might have been deemed an extremely agreeable apartment, having its projecting win dow towards the garden. Beyond the kitchen was a second apartment for the convenience of servants, in which the more coarse and ordinary offices of housewifery were