DUDLEY CASTLE.

ALTHOUGH I have prefixed a lofty title to my book, I am myself but a very little person, having never been of any consequence in the world; though I once, as I shall explain by-and-by, had a very strong desire to be what I considered a great lady. My notions, however, on these subjects were irrational, though such as many others have entertained besides myself. In fact, we poor human beings, big and little, young and old, have all by nature very false notions of real greatness, making it in our vain imaginations to consist of many things, in themselves as light and empty as any bubbles which float for a few moments in the air, displaying every variety of beautiful colours, and then vanishing in an instant. We must all of us recollect having had wishes, and hopes, and prospects, as gay and empty as these gaudy bubbles; and perhaps those should be esteemed the most happy whose bubbles burst the soonest.

I have already said that I was never of any consequence in the world. I shall now proceed to tell the reader who I am, and what I was. I am at present the wife of a worthy tradesman, and the mother of several children; and if I am content with my lowly and peaceful lot, I can feel that I must attribute it in a great measure to the divine blessing shed upon the lessons received in childhood from my truly pious parents.

My native place lies on the road between West Bromwich and Dudley, a part of England which was once very beautiful, exhibiting such a rich diversity of hill and dale as only required to be left to the hand of nature to render it delightful to the eye; and, in times past, as ancient records tell us, these hills and dales were planted with fir forests, extending for many miles, and interspersed at intervals with a few thatched cottages, a convent, or an embattled tower.

But more recently it was discovered that there were mines of coal, and iron, and limestone, of considerable value, under the surface of this fair country; and, in consequence of this discovery, there is now little to be

seen in the neighbourhood of my native place but the mouths of pits, engines pouring out smoke, ground blackened with soot, and innumerable habitations of human beings scattered in wild disorder as far as the eye can reach.

I have often thought that those persons (if there be any such) who have never travelled beyond this region of smoke and machinery, of pits and cinder-banks, can have as little notion of the beauty of those countries where the snowdrop blooms and dies without a spot on her delicate petals, as of a world where there is no stain of corruption and sin. Indeed, there was a time when my own ideas on these subjects were very imperfect, though I resided not so deep in those sooty regions as many persons whom I have since met with.

Notwithstanding, however, the smoky atmosphere in which my parents lived, they were persons of no common description. Had they been born in the purest regions of the Alps or Apennines, they could not have possessed minds more elevated above the ordinary concerns of this life. I attribute much of their superiority to my paternal grandmother, who lives with us, and who had waited in her younger days on a pious lady of distinction, and had been accustomed to read to her and to travel with her. My father was the head clerk in the house of one of the first iron masters then residing in that country. He received about one hundred pounds a year, with the use of a small house, which stood in one of the numerous rows which even then faced the road I have before mentioned.

My father's house had this advantage over the others in the row, that, being the end house, it had two additional rooms, and opened on one side by two pleasant windows upon the garden of the master's house, so that, as my grandmother used to say, by the care of a kind Providence, the very flowers were compelled to lend her their odour, and the birds their music, to render the latter days of her pilgrimage on earth as agreeable as some of her former ones had been, when her chamber window sometimes opened on parks, and lawns, and gardens of delight.

We had no parlour in our house, but we had a large kitchen laid with tiles, and a comfortable wide chimney where there was room for my grandmother's easy-chair. We had also a clock which told the day of the month,

and a set of coloured delf from the potteries, with a chest of walnut drawers, and other rare pieces of furniture; so that our house, though without a parlour, carried with it an appearance of comfort, which often caused my grandmother to break out in expressions of gratitude for the peculiar bounty of the Almighty towards herself and her children.

My parents had resolved to put by, if possible, by dint of rigid economy, a sum of money every year. In order to be able to do this they kept no servant; and as our good grandmother undertook to instruct us (for we were four girls and one boy), my mother was obliged to work hard in the house; but we were a happy family, and I remember the days of my childhood as days of such sweet peace as scarcely has its parallel in life.

Every morning when we had breakfasted our grandmother made us work and read, whilst our mother did the business of the whole house. We were taught to darn and to stitch, to mark and to knit, and to cipher on a slate. We read the psalms and lessons every morning and evening, and repeated our catechism; and when our daily tasks were completed, we were allowed to assist our mother and play in our little yard.

Every summer each of us had a new frock of flowered chints, and every Christmas another of stuff, and once in two years we had new bonnets. It was a great business, I remember, to choose the chints frocks. My mother was accustomed to fetch the patterns from Dudley; and my grandmother used to examine them, and to look at the light through them, and try how they would stand boiling water; and they were talked over as if our very wellbeing in life depended upon them. When they were made, they were seldom to be put on till the Sunday after midsummer day, and not then unless the sun shone. And then, what pains were to be taken in folding them up, and laying them smooth in the drawer!

Clothes cost much more at first than now, but much less I am persuaded in the long run, for no one in our rank of life thought of having variety, and young people were taught to take much more care of their clothes than they now do. My grandmother and father were the managers of the family, but our dear mother had her place, and she had the sense to give way in every thing that was for her children's good; she was not so

clever as our grandmother, but she was the kindest and best of parents, the nurse and friend of all the family, and never thought of herself. My grandmother loved her as if she had been her own child, and my father was grateful to her for her dutiful behaviour to his mother; often pointing out her example to us, and, exhorting us to the imitation of it. In a few words, our parents loved their God; and, trusting in his redeeming love and tender care, their faith brought forth that which it ever must produce-good works; for love is the fulfilling of the law; and whent he heart has been filled with the love of God, it cannot but follow that the pure and holy affection will show itself by a suitable good conduct.

And now, my gentle reader, having described my manner of living in my father's family, I shall go on to that particular portion of my life which is to make the especial subject of my story.

I have before mentioned that our family consisted of four sisters and a brother; our names were Mary, Ann, Jane, Sally, and Thomas. Our brother was considerably younger than we were. I am the pet of the family, and there were only four years between my elder and my younger sister.

My father never made a holyday; but when his master gave him one he always spent it with his family; and it was seldom that something was not contrived to render these days more than usually gay. Our father always spent his Sundays with us, and I, to this hour, remember with delight our Sabbaths, when, after having been at a place of worship, we used to gather all round the fire, while our parents and our grandmother impressed upon us the value of the truths which we had heard delivered from the pulpit.

To return, however, to my history, which I may be suspected of having forgotten. It happened one summer, when I was in my eleventh year, that my dear mother went to Dudley and bought us a beautiful frock apiece. I remember the pattern as well as if it had been but yesterday; it was a rose-leaf on a white ground, with a very small rosebud peeping from behind each leaf; and as it was our summer for new bonnets, she bought each of us one of plaited straw, tied down with a green riband. We had white tippets, and, to finish our dresses, our grandmother made each of us a pair of

mittens from some fine old silk stockings which had long lain by her, so that our dresses were very complete. But they were not to be worn till a particular day, when my father was promised a holyday; and then we were to have a neighbour's market-cart, and all to go off to see Dudley Castle. I had often seen that noble castle from the road, but neither myself nor my sisters had ever been upon the castle hill.

How anxiously did we watch the weather on the morning which was fixed for this pleasant scheme, and how delighted we were when we got up, and saw that there was not a single cloud in the heavens, and nothing whatever to interrupt the view of the clear blue sky but the smoke which arose from the engines, which were on all sides of our house; though there were by no means so many at that time as there are now. We were not to set out till about eleven o'clock; and our mother would not put on our best frocks till the last moment, lest any accident should befall them; for such care and economy were better practised a few years since than in our period of increasing luxury.

While waiting the arrival of my father in the cart, I stepped out to where there was a little bed of flowers at the back of the house, in order to gather a sprig of jessamine to place in my breast, when, as I stood looking about me, I saw my master's daughter, who had come the day before from a great boarding-school in some distant place. There were only a few flowering shrubs and a low railing between us, so that I had a full view of her whole figure, which in my young fancy was the very pink of splendour. I could at one time have given the whole detail of her dress, from her red morocco shoes to her pink satin Spanish hat, and white ostrich feathers; for, as I afterwards found, she was prepared to go abroad with her mamma to pay some grand visit.

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"What may you be doing there, Jane ?" said the little lady; some one told me that you were going to Dudley to-day. What are you waiting for? Surely you are not going in that shabby frock?"

"No, miss," I replied, "I am not dressed yet. 1 shall have my new frock and bonnet, and best tippet and mittens."

"Indeed," she replied, "and I suppose you expect to be very fine?" and she smiled and looked down upon her own muslin frock and red shoes, which provoked