sadness of a young widow, and turned from love and lovers with the fond fidelity of a turtle dove that has lost its mate. Never was heart more devoted and true: as Ben Brown, the fat exciseman, and Aaron Keep, the lean shoemaker, and tall Jem Ward, the blacksmith, and little Bob Wheatley, the carpenter, besides at least a score more of rejected suitors, could testify,—George Bailey being nearly the only young man in the parish who had never made Mary Walker an offer, having, within three months of the pheasant present, brought home a very sufficient reason for not doing so in the shape of an exceedingly pretty black-eyed wife. Poor Mary! she would have done wisely in following the example of the rest of the world, and forgetting William Dobson; but as she used to say, when urged on the subject, she could not.
Meanwhile, time rolled on, and it was now some years since any thing had been heard of him. May was drawing towards its close—that loveliest month, which joins the spring flowers with the summer leaves. The country was in its prime of beauty, and Sandleford Green, with its pearly bunches of hawthorn overhanging and reflected in the clear bright pond, the horse chestnuts covered with their pyramidal flowers, the golden broom skirting round the meadows where the young lambs were at play, the orchard one glow of blossom, the lilacs and laburnums scenting the arbour, and the honeysuekle perfuming the porch. Sandleford was the
