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Bridget Elia has been housekeeper for ny a long year. I hae obligatio, etending beyond the period of ry. We house together, old bachelor and id, in a sort of double singleness; with such tolerable fort, upon the whole, that I, for one, find in self no sort of disposition to go out upoains, with the rash kings offspring, to bewail celibacy. We agree pretty well in our tastes and habit -- yet so, as quot;with a difference.quot; We are generally in harny, with oasional bickerings as it should be ang near retions. Our syathies are rather uood, than epressed; and once, upon disseling a tone in oice re kind than ordinary, sin burst into tears, and pihat I was aered. We are both great readers in different dires. While I ahanging oer (for the thousandth ti) so passage in old Burton, or one of his strange poraries, she is abstracted in so dern tale, or adenture, whereof our on reading-table is daily fed with assiduously fresh supplies. Narratie teazes . I hae little in the progress of eents. She st hae a story -- well, ill;big;/big, or indifferently told -- so there be life stirring in it, and plenty of good or eil acts. The fluctuations of fortune in fi -- and alst in real life -- hae ceased to i, or operate but dully upon . Out-of-the-way huurs and opinion -- heads with so dierting twist ihe oddities of authorship please st. Musin has a natie disrelish of any thing that sounds odd or bizarre Nothing goes down with her, that is quaint, irregur, or out of the road of on syathy. She quot;holds Nature re cleer.quot; I  ardon her blio the beautiful obliquities of the Religio Medici; but she st apologise to for certain disrespectful insinuations, which she has been pleased to throw out tterly, toug the intellectuals of a dear faourite of ne, of the st tury but one -- the thrioble, chaste, and irtuous, -- but again sowhat fantastical, and inal-braind, generous Margaret Newcastle.
It has bee of sin, oftener perhaps than uld hae wished, to hae had for her associates and ne, free-thinkers leaders, and disciples, of noel philosophies and syste; but she her wrangles with, nor aepts, their opinions. That which was good and enerable to her, when a child, retains its authority oer her nd still. She neer juggles or pys tricks with her uanding.
We are both of us io be a little too positie; and I hae obsered the resu of our disputes to be alst unifory this --- that in tters of fact, dates, and circes, it turns out, that I was in the right, and sin in the wrong. But where we hae differed upon ral points; upon sothing proper to be done, or let alone; whateer heat of opposition, or steadiness of i, I set out with, I asure always, in the long run, to be brought oer to her way of thinking.
I st touch upon the foibles of kinswon with a gentle hand, fet does not like to be told of her faus. She hath an awkward trick (to say no worse of it) of reading in pany: at which tis she will answer yes or no to a question, without fully uanding its purport -- which is prooking, and derogatory in the highest degree to the dignity of the putter of the said question. Her presenind is equal to the st pressing trials of life, but will sotis desert her upon trifling oasions. When the purpose requires it, and is a thing of nt, she speak to it greatly; but in tters which are not stuff of the sce, she hath been known sotis to let slip a word less seasonably. Her education in youth was not ch atteo; and she happily ssed all that train of fele garniture, which passeth by the na of aplishnts. She was tuled early, by act or ;bdo;/bdodesign, into a spacious closet of good old English reading, without ch sele or prohibition, and browsed at will upon that fair and wholeso pasturage. Had I twenty girls, they should be brought up eactly in this fashion. I know not whether their wedlock ght not be dinished by it; but I answer for it, that it kes (if the worst e to the worst) st inparable old ids.
In a season of distress, she is the truest forter; but ieazing acts, and nor perpleities, which do not;cite9９lib?;/cite call out the will to et the she sotis keth tters worse by an ecess of participation. If she does not always diide your trouble upon the pleasanter oasions of life she is sure always to treble your satisfa. She is ecellent to be at a py with, or upon a isit; but best, when she goes a journey with you.
We de an ecursion together a few suers since, into Hertfordshire, to heat up the quarters of so of our less-knowions in that fine try.
The oldest thing I reer is Mackery End; or Mackarel End, as it is spe, perhaps re properly, in so old ps of Hertfordshire; a farouse, delightfully situated within a gentle walk froWheathastead. I just reer haihere, on a isit to a great-aunt, when I was a child, uhe care et; who, as I hae said, is older than self by so ten years. I wish that uld throw into a heap the reinder of our joiehat we ght share thein equal diision. But that is iossible. The house was at that ti in the oupation of a substantial yeon, who had rried grandthers sister. His na was Gdn. My grandther was a Bruton, rried to a Field. The Gdns and the Brutons are still flourishing in that part of the ty, but the Fields are alst etinct. More than forty years had epsed sihe isit I speak of; and, for the greater portion of that period, we had lost sight of the other two branches also. Who or what sort of persons ied Mackery End -- kindred or strange folk -- we were afraid alst to jecture, but deterned so way to eplore.
By sowhat a circuitous route, taking the noble park at Luton in our way froSaint Albans, we arried at the spot of our anious curiosity about noon. The sight of the old farhouse, though eery trace of it was effaced fro lle, affected with a pleasure which I had not eperienced for ny a year. For though I had fotten it, we had neer fotten being there together, and we had been talking about Mackery End all our lies, till ry on  art beca cked with a phantoof itself, and I thought I khe aspect of a pce, which, whe, O how u was to that, which I had jured up so ny tis instead of it!
Still the air breathed bally about it; the season was in the quot;heart of June,quot; and uld say with the poet,
But thou, that didst appear so fair
To fond igination,
Dost rial in the light of day
Her delicate creation !
Bridgets was re a waking bliss than ne, for she easily reered her old acquaintance again -- so aered features, ourse, a little grudged at. At first, indeed, she was ready to disbeliee for joy; but the se soon re-fird itself in her affe -- and she traersed eery out-post of the old nsion, to the wood-house, the orchard, the pce where the pigeon-house had stood (house and birds were alike flown) -- with a breathless iatieion, which was re pardonable perhaps than rous at the age of fifty odd. But Bridget in so things is behind her years.
The only thi was to get into the house -- and that was a difficuy whie singly would hae been insuruntable; for I aterribly shy in king self known ters and out-of-date kinsfolk. Loe, strohan scruple, winged sin in without ; but she soourned with a creature that ght hae sat to a sculptor for the ige of Wele. It was the you of the Gdns; who, by rriage with a Bruton, had beistress of the old nsion. A ely brood are the Brutons. Si of the feles, were noted as the handsost young won iy. But this adopted Bruton, in nd, was better than they all -- re ely. She was born too te to hae reered . She just llected in early life to hae had heusin Bridget pointe藏书网d out to her, g a style. But the na kindred, and ousinship, was enough. Those sleies, that proe slight as gossar in the rending atsphere of a tropolis, bind faster, as we found it, iy, holy, loifordshire. Ies we were as thhly acquainted as if we had been born and bred up together; were faliar, een to the calling each other by our Christian nas. So Christians should call one ao hae seen Bridget, and her -- it was like the eting of the two scripturausins! There was a grad dignity, an alitude of forand stature, answering to her nd, in this farrs wife, which would hae shined in a pace -- or so we thought it. We were de wele by husband and wife equally -- we, and our friend that was with us -- I had alst fotten hi-- but B. F. will not so soohat eting, if peradenture he shall read this on the far distant shores where the Kangaroo haunts. The fatted calf was de ready, or rather was already so, as if in anticipation of ; and, after an appropriate gss of natie wine, neer let fet with what ho pride this hospitablusin de us proceed to Wheathastead, to introduce us (as so new-found rarity) to her ther and sister Gdns, who did indeed know sothing re of us, at a ti when she alst knew nothing. -- With wharresponding kindness we were receied by thealso -- hets ry, eaed by the oasion, ward into a thousand half-obliterated lles of things and persons, to utter astonishnt, and her own -- and to the astou of B. F. who sat by, alst the only thing that was not usin there, -- old effaced iges of re than half-fotte;9９lib?;/cites and circutaill crowding back upon her, as words written in le upon eposure to a friendly warh, -- when I fet all this, then y trusi ; and Bridget no re reer, that in the days of weakling infancy I was her tender charge -- as I hae been her care in foolish nhood since -- in those pretty pastoral walks, long ago about Mackery End, ifordshire.
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