422 DOLLY IN DECADENCE. 



Then, as from a tree shaken by autumnal blasts, every redun- 

 dancy was seen to fall from the comfortable establishment of 

 the parsonage cottage. House and kitchen-maids, stable-lad, 

 and gardener, were one by one dismissed ; the cows were 

 driven to a fair ; the pony became the property of a neighbour 

 farmer. The supplies of old pensioners dwindled till they died. 

 The kitchen range became of course proportionately contracted, 

 the jack was rarely heard, and as for the cricket, that was 

 never heard or seen at all never since that fatal evening; 

 he was departed dead, or, if of mould immortal, mortally 

 offended. 



In a language of signs too significant to be mistaken was 

 thus revealed the purport of that chilly greeting which had met 

 my uncle upon Christmas morning ; the announcement, for it 

 was none other, of his banker's total failure, involving the loss 

 of his whole fortune, except the slender income derived from his 

 very small, poor, and lowly-tithed parish. 



It may seem strange, but the boding impression made on 

 Mrs. Dove by the wrong done to the favourite of her hearth 

 did not appear so greatly deepened as might have been expected 

 by the blow fallen already on her master's fortune. She was 

 doubtless perfectly convinced that it had happened in accord- 

 ance with her prophetic augury ; but perhaps she had expected 

 worse, and was relieved, therefore, at supposing the doom ac- 

 complished, and that ill luck or the offended cricket had done 

 its worst. 



Then there was another cause why Dolly's spirits bore up so 

 bravely. She was more busy than ever. Prodigious were her 

 efforts to supply to her impoverished master the deficiencies 

 which, but for them, he might have felt in his personal com- 

 forts. His dinners were dressed with double care, more pro- 

 fusely garnished, more punctually served. Not a stew-pan did 

 she suffer to grow dull in absence of the kitchen-maid, nor a 

 parlour to mourn in dust and cobwebs for the absence of the 

 housemaid. She supplied the place of all ; yet every evening 



