He was going to London on business, and would come back from London to Babington on a day which he named.

'I think the dear child will be happy,' said Mrs. Babington to her old friend, Mrs. Munday,the wife of Archdeacon Munday, the clerical dignitary who had given Mr. Smirkie so good a character.

If such were the treatment to which he and she had been subjected,if he, innocent, had been torn away from her and sent to the common jail, and if she, certainly innocent, had been wrongly deprived for a time of the name which he had honestly given her,then would it not have been right to open to her the hearts and the doors at Babington during the period of her great distress?

To describe the work as 'a series of jocose caricaturesas Churchill Babington in his animadversions on Macaulay's History doesis absurd.

The archdeacon, of course, has a curate; but I suppose Mr. Smirkie could hardly manage that just at present?' The views which had hitherto been taken at Babington of the bride's future life had been somewhat loftier than this.

Then the subject was dropped; and on the next morning, John wrote to his aunt saying that he would go over to Babington after his return from London.

There was a habit at Babington with the ladies of sitting with the squire when he was the only man present till he had finished his wine, and, at Mrs. Smirkie's instance, this custom was continued when she and her husband were at the house.

Mrs. Babington at the moment was employed in sewing a button on the wristband of her husband's shirt, and in the start which she gave stuck the needle into his arm.