a girl, an amusing instance of which is given by the late Cuthbert Bede in Notes and Queries as having occurred in a Worcestershire parish.

On the occasion in question there were three baptisms, two boys and a girl, and when the first child was about to be christened the woman who carried the little girl elbowed her way up to the parson, in order that the child in her arms might be the first to be baptized. By way of apology, she said to one of the sponsors, "It's a girl, so it must be christened first.'

On the following day an opportunity was taken to ascertain her motive, and this was her explanation: "You see, sir, the parson bain't a married man, and consequentially is disfamiliar with children, or he'd a-never put the little girl to be christened after the boys. And although it sadly fluster'd me, sir, to put myself afore my betters in the way which I was fosed to do, yet, sir, it was the doing of a kindness to them two little boys in me a-setting of my little daughter afore 'em."

"Why?"

"Well, sir, if them little boys had been christened afore the little girl, they'd have her soft chin and she'd have had their hairy beards— the poor little incident! But, thank goodness, I've kept her from that misfortune."

On the other hand, strange to say, in Scotland, and in some parts of the North of England, just the reverse practice is observed, the Scotch reason being that to christen a girl before a boy would be to make the former of a masculine nature, while

the latter would grow up effeminate. A correspondent of Notes and Queries, writing from Darlington in 1867, says, "While standing at the font, and preparing to baptise two children, the nurse attending on one of the parties abruptly demanded of the other nurse if the child she presented was a boy. When questioned on the subject, she replied that she wondered at my not knowing that a boy was always christened before a girl.'

An amusing equivocal rhyme long current in Durham tells how

"John Lively, Vicar of Kelloe,

Had seven daughters and never a fellow,"

which, it has been suggested, "may either mean that the parson of the sixteenth century had no son, or that he had no equal in learning." Another version of the proverb reads "six daughters seven, it is said, being often merely a conventional number. But, whatever the object of this folkrhyme may be, the parson mentions no son in his will, in which he leaves to his daughter Elisabeth his best gold ring with a death's head in it, and seventeen yards of white cloth for curtains of a bed, and to his daughter Mary his silver seal of arms, his gimald ring, and black gold ring.1

Grown-up daughters at home would occasionally seem to have been regarded the opposite of a blessing to their father, for "Three daughters and

See Halliwell's "Popular Rhymes," 1849, p. 202, and Hazlitt's "English Proverbs," 1869, p. 250.

a mother," runs the German proverb, "are four devils for the father;" but, it is added, "Would you know your daughter, see her in company," for then she will cultivate every charm to make herself as attractive as possible. At home the picture is quite the reverse, for, runs the popular German adage, “A house full of daughters is like a cellar full of sour beer; and there is our own proverb, "Marriageable, foolish wenches are troublesome troops to keep.'

A Cheshire maxim, too, speaks in the same strain :

"I'll tent thee, quoth Wood,

If I can't rule my daughter, I'll rule my good."

This idea, it may be added, is conveyed in various ways, which, it must be acknowledged, are far from being favourable to the children, for, as a Northamptonshire couplet says:—

"As tall as your knee they are pretty to see;
As tall as your head they wish you were dead."

Hence daughters are certain cares, but uncertain comforts; and, according to an Oriental proverbial maxim

"A daughter after two sons brings prosperity,
And a son after two daughters beggary."

And we may compare the Lincolnshire couplet―

"Lasses is cumbersome,

Lads is lumbersome."

Folk-maxims of this kind might be easily multiplied, a popular Welsh adage reminding us that "the worst store is a maid unbestowed," but when it is remembered in the words of our old proverb that "Every. Jack must have his Jill," there is hope for every daughter of Eve, for she may be the object of a passion similar to that described by Charles Dance :—

"By the margins of fair Zurich's waters

Dwelt a youth, whose fond heart, night and day,
For the fairest of fair Zurich's daughters,
In a dream of love melted way.'

A

CHAPTER XXVII

MY LADY'S WALK

Sole-sitting by the shores of old romance."

WORDSWORTH.

SSOCIATED with many of our historic houses and romantic spots, "My Lady's Walk" perpetuates the memory, not infrequently, of traditions of a tragic and legendary kind, some of which belong to incidents bound up with the seamy side of family romance.

Thus at Huddington, Worcestershire, there is an avenue of trees called "Lady Winter's Walk," where, it is said, the lady of Thomas Winterwho was forced to conceal himself on account of his share in the Gunpowder Plot-was in the habit of awaiting her husband's furtive visits; and here, it is affirmed, her ladyship is still occasionally seen pacing up and down her old accustomed haunt beneath the sombre shade of those aged

trees.