BY MRS. S. C. HALL. those first affections, Those shadowy recollections, Which, be they what they may, Are yet the fountain light of all our day." WORDSWORTH. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1857. The right of Translation is reserved. 249. V. 554. A WOMAN'S STORY. CHAPTER I. "Yet here high passions, high desires unfold, ROGERS. "WELL!" exclaimed little Major Cobb, after three ineffectual attempts to obtain for his hand a comfortable resting-place on the window of the high built carriage, which, through doing duty for a number of years as 'glass-coach' at Hampstead, would have 'cut up' into I know not how many 'broughams,' or double-bodied 'flies;' "well, really, well," he repeated, having gained his breath, you are moving! why you VOL. II. B must be a fortune to the job-master; and they do say, you had a coach waiting for you on the hill the other night, and all day yesterday—a glass-coach, and another to day! It doesn't do you good, indeed it does not, for all that," persisted the little Major, rolling up his eyes to me, "it does not do you good; you look as if just off a forced march-great fatigue, and short rations. Mrs. Cobb (she's sadly off her limbs, poor soul-can't outwalk me), Mrs. Cobb wants to know-indeed, when Tozer said the yellow coach was again at your door this morning-Mrs. Cobb sent me to ask," and he stood on the the tops of his toes, while I bent my head out of the window to hear what it was he wished to inquire about, sotto voce, "Mrs. Cobb wants to know if Green, the job-master, charges you three-and-sixpence the first hour, and three shillings every hour afterwards, when you have the carriage so frequently? She says, if he does, it is a shame, and you ought not to submit to it. They are all great rogues, and if you go on paying full price, when you have the carriage so often, why he will expect us all to do the same thing, and there will be no end to the expense. I was obliged to say I feared I had not been as provident in this matter as became me, and confessed that, in one way or other, I paid Green a considerable income. "It would have been better for you to have been neighbourly with the Saunders', and joined them in a carriage all the year round, day about to use it, and every second Sunday; so Mrs. Cobb says.' "And the Saunders, say, Major," I replied, not, I confess, with my usual prudence, "that the best way of all would be for you to lend them your carriage occasionally to take a drive in-better than keeping it in the huge coach-house as a nesting-place for sparrows. As to me, I like to be mistress of my own actions and, perhaps, the day I wanted the carriage would be the very day I could not have it." "Indeed," replied the good-natured little man, "indeed, what you say about the carriage is very true, but Mrs. Cobb does not like the family arms, after all the trouble she had to find them, to go about without her." Again he rolled his round eyes up to me. "It's true |