210 IDLEHURST: 



of the mercury. If any modern should follow that 

 delightful precisian Aquinas, who fixed the universal 

 age of the saints in glory at thirty-three, and should 

 apply the thermometer to the empyrean, he might be 

 conjectured to determine the figure at 65 Fahrenheit. 

 A little more, a little less, and how self-conscious do 

 we become ! 



Halfway on my road, a cart pulled up beside me, 

 and I was hailed by old Avery, with an offer of a lift 

 into the town. The springs of the conveyance were 

 perfunctory things, and space was cramped by a well- 

 grown calf under a net behind the seat ; but the offer 

 was not to be declined. I got up at once ; the mare 

 Polly was persuaded by much jerking of the reins to 

 start ; and we jogged on towards Tisfield market. I 

 find that Avery has had trouble lately ; he has lost 

 two cows through milk fever, and his wife has been 

 laid up for a fortnight with " the kidney ; " but he 

 possesses that very real form of piety, as I think it, 

 which shows itself under misfortune by an enlarged 

 sense of the humour of things. 



" I wasn't able to go to market last week," he tells 

 me ; " had the landlord's agent down to look round : 

 come all the way from London, and of course he 

 couldn't know it was market day ; could he ? A rare 

 lot of money they loses, doing things that way ! My 



