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THE WOOD- ANT AND THE APHIDES. 



"Povert a spectacle is, as tliinketh me, 

 Through which he may his very Frendis see. 1 ' CHAUCER. 



IN the midst of an oak wood stands a village or scattered 

 group of rustic habitations. These are curiously excavated in 

 the earth, above which rise their dome-like roofs, thatched in 

 a peculiar manner, with pieces of stick and straw, and each 

 is the common abode of a large community of various ranks 

 and orders. In one of these sylvan dwellings there lived, 

 and perhaps lives still, a good sort of body, a female member 

 of the working class, who set a perfect pattern of industry; 

 though (to do them justice) all her neighbours and fellow- 



