Country Lodgings | Page 3

exactly at that most delightful
period when children are very pleasant to look upon, and require no
other sort of notice whatsoever. Of course this state of perfection could
not be expected to continue. The young gentleman would soon aspire to

the accomplishments of walking and talking--and then!--but as that
hour of turmoil and commotion to which his mamma looked forward
with ecstacy was yet at some months distance, I contented myself with
saying of master Archy, with considerably less than the usual falsehood,
that which everybody does say of only children, that he was the finest
baby that ever was seen.
We met almost every day. Mrs. Cameron was never weary of driving
about our beautiful lanes in her little pony-carriage, and usually called
upon us in her way home, we being not merely her oldest, but almost
her only friends; for lively and social as was her temper, there was a
little touch of shyness about her, which induced her rather to shun than
to covet the company of strangers. And indeed the cheerfulness of
temper, and activity of mind, which made her so charming an
acquisition to a small circle, rendered her independent of general
society. Busy as a bee, sportive as a butterfly, she passed the greater
part of her time in the open air, and having caught from me that very
contagious and engrossing passion, a love of floriculture, had actually
undertaken the operation of restoring the old garden at the Court--a
coppice of brambles, thistles, and weeds of every description, mixed
with flowering shrubs, and overgrown fruit-trees--to something like its
original order. The farmer, to be sure, had abandoned the job in despair,
contenting himself with growing his cabbages and potatoes in a field
hard by. But she was certain that she and her maid Martha, and the boy
Bill, who looked after her pony, would weed the paths, and fill the
flower-borders in no time. We should see; I had need take good care of
my reputation, for she meant her garden to beat mine.
What progress Helen and her forces, a shatter-brain boy who did not
know a violet from a nettle, and a London-bred girl who had hardly
seen a rose-bush in her life, would have made in clearing this forest of
underwood, might easily be foretold. Accident, however, that frequent
favourer of bold projects, came to her aid in the shape of a more
efficient coadjutor.
Late one evening the fair Helen arrived at our cottage with a face of
unwonted gravity. Mrs. Davies (her landlady) had used her very ill. She

had taken the west wing in total ignorance of there being other
apartments to let at the Court, or she would have secured them. And
now a new lodger had arrived, had actually taken possession of two
rooms in the centre of the house; and Martha, who had seen him, said
he was a young man, and a handsome man--and she herself a young
woman unprotected and alone!--It was awkward, very awkward! Was it
not very awkward? What was she to do?
Nothing could be done that night; so far was clear; but we praised her
prudence, promised to call at Upton the next day, and if necessary, to
speak to this new lodger, who might, after all, be no very formidable
person; and quite relieved by the vent which she had given to her
scruples, she departed in her usual good spirits.
Early the next morning she re-appeared. "She would not have the new
lodger disturbed for the world! He was a Pole. One doubtless of those
unfortunate exiles. He had told Mrs. Davies that he was a Polish
gentleman desirous chiefly of good air, cheapness, and retirement
Beyond a doubt he was one of those unhappy fugitives. He looked
grave, and pale, and thoughtful, quite like a hero of romance. Besides,
he was the very person who a week before had caught hold of the reins
when that little restive pony had taken fright at the baker's cart, and
nearly backed Bill and herself into the great gravel-pit on Lanton
Common. Bill had entirely lost all command over the pony, and but for
the stranger's presence of mind, she did not know what would have
become of them. Surely I must remember her telling me the
circumstance? Besides, he was unfortunate! He was poor! He was an
exile! She would not be the means of driving him from the asylum
which he had chosen for all the world!--No! not for all my geraniums!"
an expression which is by no means the anti-climax that it seems--for in
the eyes of a florist, and that florist an enthusiast and a woman, what is
this rusty fusty dusty musty bit of earth, called the world, compared to
a stand of bright