“Poor children,” sympathized Pandit Lallaram.

The reader should remember that husbandmen in fielden parishes formed a majority of the rural population.

Now the skin was puckered into a million wrinkles, and on the shapeless face was the stamp of unutterable age.

Bells ringing, flags waving, may-poles—so long unseen—bonfires in due preparation for night, morris-dancers, who had practised for the last four-and-twenty hours unremittingly to refresh their ancient craft, an ox roasted whole, cakes, ale, crowds, confusion,—all assembled in and about Avonleigh Park, to greet the master's return.