116 Parlor Ornaments. 



wisdom — not exactly a wizard, but something ap- 

 proacliing it nearl}' in reputation. Even within the 

 last fifteen years the aid of an ancient like this used 

 to be regularly invoked in this neighborhood ; in 

 some mysterious way his simple presence and good- 

 will — gained by plentiful liquor — was supposed to 

 be efficacious against accident and loss. The strange- 

 ness of the business was in the fact that his patrons 

 were not altogether ignorant or even uneducated — 

 they merely carried on tlie old custom, not from faith 

 in it, but just because it was the custom. When the 

 wizard at last died nothing more was thought about 

 it. Another ancient used to come round once or 

 twice in the 3'ear, with a couple of long ashen staves, 

 and the ceremony performed by him consisted in 

 dancing these two sticks together in a fantastic 

 manner to some old rh3'me or story. 



The parlor is always full of flowers — the mantel- 

 piece and grate in spring quite hidden by fresh green 

 boughs of horse-chestnut in bloom, or with hlac, blue 

 bells, or wild hyacinths ; in summer nodding grasses 

 from the meadows, roses, sweet-brier ; in the autumn 

 two or three great apples, the finest of the j^ear, put 

 as ornaments among the china, and the corners of 

 the looking-glass decorated with bunches of ripe 

 wheat. A badger's skin lies across the back of the 

 armchair ; a fox's head, the sharp white tusks show- 

 ing, snarls over the doorway ; and in glass cases are 

 a couple of stutfed kingfishers, a polecat, a white 

 blackbird, and a diver — rare here — shot in the mere 

 hard by. 



On the walls are a couple of old hunting pictures, 

 dusky with age, but the crudity of the colors by no 



