“See the new edition of the Statutes at Large, published under the careful revision of Joseph Jobson, Gent., Clerk of the Peace,” said Miss Vernon.

“Also, and above all,” continued Jobson,—“for I speak to your warning—you, Diana Vernon, spinstress, not being a femme couverte; and being a convict popish recusant, are bound to repair to your own dwelling, and that by the nearest way, under penalty of being held felon to the king—and diligently to seek for passage at common ferries, and to tarry there but one ebb and flood; and unless you can have it in such places, to walk every day into the water up to the knees, assaying to pass over.”

“A sort of Protestant penance for my Catholic errors, I suppose,” said Miss Vernon, laughing. “Well, I thank you for the information, Mr. Jobson, and will hie me home as fast as I can, and be a better housekeeper in time coming. Good night, my dear Mr. Jobson, thou mirror of clerical courtesy.”

“Good night, ma’am, and remember the law is not to be trifled with.”

And we rode on our separate ways.

“There he goes for a troublesome mischief-making tool,” said Miss Vernon, as she gave a glance after him; “it is hard that persons of birth and rank and estate should be subjected to the official impertinence of such a paltry pickthank as that, merely for believing as the whole world believed not much above a hundred years ago—for certainly our Catholic faith has the advantage of antiquity at least.”

“I was much tempted to have broken the rascal’s head,” I replied.

“You would have acted very like a hasty young man,” said Miss Vernon; “and yet, had my own hand been an ounce heavier than it is, I think I should have laid its weight upon him.—Well, it does not signify complaining, but there are three things for which I am much to be pitied, if any one thought it worth while to waste any compassion upon me.”

“And what are these three things, Miss Vernon, may I ask?”

“Will you promise me your deepest sympathy, if I tell you?”

“Certainly;—can you doubt it?” I replied, closing my horse nearer to hers as I spoke, with an expression of interest which I did not attempt to disguise.

“Well, it is very seducing to be pitied, after all; so here are my three grievances—In the first place, I am a girl, and not a young fellow, and would be shut up in a mad-house, if I did half the things that I have a mind to; and that, if I had your happy perogative of acting as you list, would make all the world mad with imitating and applauding me.”

“I can’t quite afford you the sympathy you expect upon this score,” I replied; “the misfortune is so general, that it belongs to one half of the species; and the other half—”

“Are so much better cared for, that they are jealous of their prerogatives,” interrupted Miss Vernon; “I forgot you were a party interested. Nay,” said she, as I was going to speak, “that soft smile is intended to be the preface of a very pretty compliment respecting the peculiar advantages which Die Vernon’s friends and kinsmen enjoy, by her being born one of their Helots; but spare me the utterance, my good friend, and let us try whether we shall agree better on the second count of my indictment against fortune, as that quill-driving puppy would call it. I belong to an oppressed sect and antiquated religion, and, instead of getting credit for my devotion, as is due to all good girls beside, my kind friend, Justice Inglewood, may send me to the house of correction, merely for worshipping God in the way of my ancestors, and say, as old Pembroke did to the Abbess of Wilton,¹ when he usurped her convent and establishment, ‘Go spin, you jade,—Go spin.’ ”