husband's eyes open and his lips moving. Standing over him she heard him say—"Is it true?"
"True! how can you ask me such a question! I swear it is not."
"No, no, not the last part of course! but any of it, that young man—was he fond of you—were you engaged?"
A bright flush suffused her face, but she answered steadily, "We were."
"And what made you break with him? Why did you quarrel? You don't answer. Is the letter right? Did you give him up for me? Did you let my position, my money, weigh more with you than his love and his heart? Did you do this?"
"And suppose I did—what then?" said Marian, with flashing eyes—"are you here to plead his cause? Have I not been a dutiful and a proper wife to you? You yourself have just spoken of this vile slander with the scorn it deserves! Of what then do you complain?"
"Of nothing. I complain of nothing, save perhaps of your ignorance of me! Ah, good Heavens! did you know me so little as to think that your happiness was not my aim, not so much my own! Did you not know that my love for you was so little selfish, that if I had had the least dream of your engagement to this young man, I should have taken such delight in forwarding it and providing for you both. You would have been near me still, you would have been a daughter to me, andLift me up! the cordial—quick!" and he fell back in a faint.
Dr. Osborne was sent for, and came at once, but it was plain to all that Mr. Creswell's end was at hand. He had two severe paroxysms of pain, and then lay perfectly still and tranquil. Marian was sitting by his bedside, and in the middle of the night she felt his hand plucking at the sleeve of her gown. She roused herself and looked at him. His eyes were open, and there was a bright, happy expression on his thin face. His mind was wandering far away, back to the early days of his poverty and his struggles, and she who had shared both was with him. He pulled Marian to him, and she leaned eagerly forward; but it was not of her he was thinking. "Jenny!" he said, and his tongue reverted to the old familiar dialect which it had not used for so many years—"Jenny! coom away, lass! Taim's oop!—that's t' mill bell ringin'! Thou'rt a brave lass, and we've had hard taim of it; but we're near t' end now! Kiss me, Jenny! Always good and brave, lass—always" And so he died.
English Hop Gardens.
Along the valley of the Medway, between Tunbridge and Maidstone, through Tunbridge Wells by way of Frant, Wadhurst, Ticehurst, and Mayfield, to Battle and Rye, one traverses the principal hop districts of Kent and Sussex. It is part of the geological formation which passes from Hastings to Tunbridge Wells, and rises in lofty hills at Crowborough in Ashdown forest. The hills are irregular and tossed about in all directions, for the earth's surface was the scene of strange vagaries before it settled to its present form. The district is as mixed in soil as in outline. Much of the land is very good, especially among the hops. In the midst of the rich farming of Kent one remembers with pleasure Cobbett's love of rural pursuits, his attachment to his Indian corn and his bonnet-grass, and his hatred of the potato, that "soul-debasing root." Attracted by a creeper with a very handsome blossom, growing over some houses in the main street of Tunbridge, I inquired its name. The name was lost, but the plants, I was told, had been brought there by William Cobbett.
Around Tunbridge there are various little streams and brooks running into the Medway; among these, the hops are found. Following the river towards its source, through Hartfield to East Grinstead, where it is but a little brook, I find that hops still choose to grow on, or near, its banks. From Tunbridge to Maidstone—fourteen miles—through Hadlow, Peckham, Mereworth, Wateringbury, Teston, and Barming, there are hops and orchards all the way. The prettiest orchards are those in which rows of apple-trees are mixed with filberts, cherries, and other low-growing trees. Filberts and cob-nuts do not want so much sun as the larger fruits; they need shelter, and they do not suffer from a little shade. The apple-trees, therefore, are planted wide apart, as tall standards, and are allowed to grow to a considerable height; under them, grow smaller trees, filberts, cherries, plums, damsons, and sometimes currants and gooseberries. The lower trees are kept small, and the filberts are pruned as bushes. They are all planted in rows, but a mixed orchard in full bearing looks like one mass of foliage and fruit. Inside, it is a busy scene. The orchards are often secluded within high hedges and close gates, and when picking is going on a merry humming is heard from within. The cost of picking a good crop of apples is from twopence to threepence a bushel. They are sent to London in bushel and half-bushel baskets (sieves). These belong to the salesman, who often sells and delivers the fruit, without unpacking it. Very few pears are seen in Kent; they prefer stiffer soils; the apple-tree delights in land
