94 ^N ANGLER'S BASKET. 



every passenger being provided at the same time with bulky 

 impedimenta, and, if you are particularly lucky, the cargo 

 may include a couple of live calves in sacks. The tout 

 mseniUe is not imposing it is distinctly alarming ; the vehicle 

 lies over to starboard or port, like a yacht in a strong breeze, 

 and here and there a head only can be seen peeping out of a 

 mass of hampers and packages in the trap. On a certain 

 occasion when things were in this condition, at the door of 

 the " The Tennant's Arms " at Kilnsey, many of the pas- 

 sengers being anglers returning from the Dales, there 

 suddenly appeared at the door of the inn a charming and 

 really beautiful girl of 18. She looked longingly at the badly 

 congested vehicle, and, although the passengers were already 

 in a state of semi-suffocation, there were at least half a dozen 

 prepared at once to make room for her. " Is there room ? " 

 she asked in the sweetest of voices, with a delightful smile 

 that begot a universal " Yes, certainly ! " " Then come 

 along, uncle," she said ; and uncle came along, a ponderous 

 matter of 16 stones. He ascended the steps of the vehicle, 

 and having squeezed himself in, or rather on, the damsel 

 kissed her hand gaily and retired to the recesses of the inn, 

 while her avuncular relative took snuff in a gale of wind and 

 language all the way to Skipton, and nobody had a word to 

 say about that charmer's little dodge. 



Two garrulous old women were chattering away about 

 -everything and everybody, when one of them asked the other 

 what sort of a thing a Jubilee was (this was in 1887). 

 " Well," said her crony, " it's in this way : When you have 

 been married twenty-five years it is a silver wedding, and 

 when you have been married fifty years it's a golden 

 wedding ; and when your husband dies it's a Jubilee." Oh ! 

 woman, woman ! " She speaks poignards, and every word 

 stabs." 



