see neighbours doing, stoop to propitiate their
customers.

"And custom lies upon them with a weight,
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!"

For my own part I shall think well before
I entrust any teacher with the training of my
George or Caroline Amelia. The teacher I
select shall be at least one who is worthy to
be called my friend. He shall be one who is,
in worth of character, if not in cash, at least
my equal. To such a teacher I will give my
confidence and my respect. This I will do so
frankly, that if everybody did the same, the
schoolmaster would never again seek to entice
ladies and gentlemen to walk up, by sounding
a trumpet for himself, and playing Merry-
Andrew during the vacation at his school-
room door.

THE GREAT CRANFORD PANIC.

IN TWO CHAPTERS. CHAPTER THE SECOND.

Miss Pole was very much inclined to install
herself as a heroine, because of the decided
steps she had taken in flying from the two
men and one woman, whom she entitled "that
murderous gang." She described their
appearance in glowing colours, and I noticed
that every time she went over the story, some
fresh trait of villany was added to their
appearance. One was tall—he grew to be
gigantic in height before we had done with
him—he of course had black hair; and by
and bye, it hung in elf-locks over his forehead
and down his back. The other was
short and broad, and a hump sprouted out on
his shoulder before we heard the last of him;
he had red hair, which deepened to carrotty,
and she was almost sure he had a cast in his
eye—a decided squint. As for the woman,
her eyes glared, and she was masculine-
looking; a perfect virago, most probably a
man dressed in woman's clothes: afterwards,
we heard of a beard on her chin,
and a manly voice and a stride. If Miss
Pole was delighted to recount the events of
that afternoon to all inquirers, others were
not so proud of their adventures in the
robbery line. Mr. Hoggins, the surgeon, had
been attacked at his own door by two ruffians,
who were concealed in the shadow of the
porch, and so effectually silenced him, that he
was robbed in the interval between ringing
his bell and the servant's answering it. Miss
Pole was sure it would turn out that this
robbery had been committed by "her men,"
and went the very day she heard of the
report to have her teeth examined, and to
question Mr. Hoggins. She came to us afterwards;
so we heard what she had heard
straight and direct from the source, while we
were yet in the excitement and flutter of the
agitation caused by the first intelligence; for
the event had only occurred the night before.

"Well!" said Miss Pole, sitting down
with the decision of a person who has made
up her mind as to the nature of life and the
world, (and such people never tread lightly,
or seat themselves without a bump)—"Well,
Miss Matey! men will be men. Every
mother's son of them wishes to be considered
Samson and Solomon rolled into one—too
strong ever to be beaten or discomfited, too
wise ever to be outwitted. If you will notice,
they have always foreseen events, though they
never tell one for one's warning before the
events happen; my father was a man, and I
know the sex pretty well."

She had talked herself out of breath, and
we should have been very glad to fill up the
necessary pause as chorus, but we did not
exactly know what to say, or which man had
suggested this diatribe against the sex; so we
only joined in generally, with a grave shake
of the head, and a soft murmur of "They are
very incomprehensible, certainly!"

"Now only think," said she. "There I have
undergone the risk of having one of my
remaining teeth drawn (for one is terribly at
the mercy of any surgeon-dentist; and I, for
one, always speak them fair till I have got
my mouth out of their clutches), and after
all, Mr. Hoggins is too much of a man to own
that he was robbed last night."

"Not robbed!" exclaimed the chorus.

"Don't tell me!" Miss Pole exclaimed,
angry that we could be for a moment imposed
upon. "I believe he was robbed, just as
Betty told me, and he is ashamed to own it:
and, to be sure, it was very silly of him to be
robbed just at his own door; I dare say, he
feels that such a thing won't raise him in the
eyes of Cranford society, and is anxious to
conceal it—but he need not have tried to
impose upon me, by saying I must have heard
an exaggerated account of some petty theft of
a neck of mutton, which, it seems, was stolen
out of the safe in his yard last week; he had
the impertinence to add, he believed that
that was taken by the cat. I have no doubt,
if I could get to the bottom of it, it was that
Irishman dressed up in woman's clothes, who
came spying about my house, with the story
about the starving children."

After we had duly condemned the want of
candour which Mr. Hoggins had evinced, and
abused men in general, taking him for the
representative and type, we got round to
the subject about which we had been talking
when Miss Pole came in, namely, how far,
in the present disturbed state of the country,
we could venture to accept an invitation
which Miss Matey had just received from
Mrs. Forrester, to come as usual and keep
the anniversary of her wedding-day, by
drinking tea with her at five o'clock, and
playing a quiet pool afterwards. Mrs.
Forrester had said, that she asked us with some
diffidence, because the roads were, she feared,
very unsafe. But she suggested that, perhaps,
one of us would not object to take the sedan;
and that the others, by walking briskly,
might keep up with the long trot of the