which Laurette has too good a wardrobe to need, and too much taste to wear; can’t pass within a yard of her without a loving pinch of her pretty round cheek; and swears by every seaman’s oath that ever was invented, that she’s the neatest-built vessel, with the comeliest figure-head, that ever was launched. And, incredible as it seems, Laurette loves him: delights in his rough kindness, his boldness, and his honesty: calls him still ‘un brave garçon’; enters into his humour; studies his comfort; has learnt more English during her six weeks’ marriage than in six years that she lived with me; and has even advanced so far as to approach, as nearly as a French tongue may do, to the pronunciation of her own name, Stokes—a terrible trial to Gallic organs. In short,” continued Mrs. Talbot, “of a very foolish thing, it has turned out better than might have been expected; Adam’s adherents, Ned and Neptune, fairly idolise their new mistress; poor thing, her kindness, and good-nature, and gaiety, were always most delightful; and Ned is, she assures me, a very handy boy in the house, does all the dirty work, dusts and scrubs, and washes and cooks, and trots about in a pair of high pattens and a checked apron, just exactly like a maid-of-all- work. I send Gilbert to her almost every day with one trifle or another, sometimes a basket of provisions, sometimes my reversionary flowers (for Laurette can’t live without flowers), and, on the whole, I really think she will do very well.”

This account was most satisfactory; but, happening again to pass Laurette’s cottage in the bowery month of June, I saw cause to fear that a change had passed over the pretty French-woman’s prospects. Outwardly the picture was as bright, or brighter, than ever. It was summer—gay, smiling summer. The hawthorn- buds in the hedgerows were exchanged for the full-blown blossoms of the wayfaring-tree, whose double circle of white stars, regular as if cut with a stamp, forms so beautiful a cluster of flowerets, and contrasts so gaily with the deep pink of the wild rose, and the pale, but graceful garlands of the woodbine; the meadows had, indeed, lost their flowery glory, and were covered partly with rich swathes of new-cut grass, and partly with large haycocks, dappling the foreground with such depth and variety of light and shadow; but the river’s edge was gay as a garden with flags and water-lilies, and the pendent bunches of the delicate snowflake, the most elegant of aquatic plants; and Laurette’s garden itself, one bright bed of pinks, and roses, and honeysuckles, and berry-bushes, with their rich transparent fruit, might almost have vied in colour and fragrance with that of her mistress. The change was not in the place, but in the inhabitants.

Adam was employed in landing a net full of fish, perch, roach, and dace, such a haul as ought to have put any fisherman into good humour, but which certainly had had no such effect on the present occasion. He looked as black as a thunder-cloud, swore at the poor fish as he tossed them on the bank, called Ned a lubber; and when, in a fit of absence, he from mere habit resumed his patriotic ditty, shouted, “Britons never will be slaves,” with such a scowl at his poor foreign wife, that it could only be interpreted into a note of defiance. She, on her side, was still working at her cottage door, or rather sitting there listlessly with her work (a checked shirt of her churlish husband’s) in her lap, her head drooping, and the gay air of “C’est l’amour” exchanged for a plaintive romance, which ran, as well as I could catch it, something in this fashion:

And when the romance was done, which might have touched Adam’s heart, if he could but have understood it, poor Laurette sighed amain, took up the checked shirt, and seemed likely to cry; Neptune looked doleful, as one who comprehended that something was the matter, but could not rightly understand what; and Ned was in the dumps. A dreary change had come over the whole family, of which the cause was not known to me for some time afterwards:—Adam was jealous.

The cause of this jealousy was no other than the quondam candidate for the fisherman’s favour, his prime aversion, Nanny Sims.