SELINA'S STARLING 



THERE was no such plucky and untiring little 

 woman as Selina in all our village. I say was, 

 for I am thinking of years ago, at the time when 

 her Starling came to her ; but she is with us still, 

 plucky and indefatigable as ever, but now a bent 

 and bowed figure of a tiny little old woman, left 

 alone in the world, but for her one faithful 

 friend. 



Untiring she has ever been, but never, so far 

 as we can recollect, a tidy woman in her own 

 cottage ; perhaps it was natural to her, or more 

 likely she fell in with the odd ways of her hus- 

 band, a man whom no wife could ever have made 

 tidy himself. They never had any children, and 

 they did not see much of their neighbours ; their 

 society was that of pigs and fowls and cats, and 

 such society, inside a cottage, is not compatible 



