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BATTLE-FIELD OF WATERLOO.

the time of the battle. Altogether it may be nearly a mile in length, and the houses, which in this country are generally white, stand on each side of the road, with gardens before and behind them. It is pleasantly situated on high ground, and is no doubt a healthy spot.

We pulled up opposite the church, which is a spacious modern edifice. The tower which fronts the street on a rising ground is surmounted with a black dome. We had some difficulty in getting admittance, for our bad French and our charioteer's bad English, were sadly at fault. At length a female from a neighbouring cottage hastened to our aid. We soon made her comprehend our wishes, and she obtained the key of the building.

On entering the church, we found the walls literally covered over in all parts with monuments and memorials of the slain, chiefly of English officers. These were already beginning to look old and time-worn. Several officers were buried in gardens or other retired spots in the village and neighbourhood, with suitable monuments over their remains.

One thing took hold of my attention. The whole body of the church was clear of pews or sittings. There was a great number of chairs piled up which appeared to be in constant use, and it seems that each person has his own chair. This I found to be the case in the large churches, and in the cathedral' at Brussels. On the walls were various popish pictures and emblems, and two figures nearly as large as life of the Virgin and Child, dressed out in the most splendid finery, but rather tawdry withal. Fixed on each side of the church were large wooden closets, something like a soldiers sentry box, only broader. These were the confessionals in which the priests sit to hear the people confess their sins. Often had we heard of such things as these, but here they were in

the parish church of Waterloo before our eyes and in constant use. Surely the days will come when Belgium, popish Belgium, with her far-famed Waterloo and Mont St. Jean, will be enlightened by the Word of God.

Opposite the church is the house in which Wellington wrote his despatch on the night of the battle, and a cottage near is pointed out as the place in the small parlour of which the leg of the Marquis of Anglesea was amputated.

We left Waterloo and proceeded direct for Brussels, where we arrived about five o'clock, just in time for dinner.

But returning by another road, we passed through several villages or hamlets. This road was a scene of great excitement on the day of the battle-officers and messengers passing and re-passing with the utmost speed. Reports of all kinds were spreadsometimes the battle was lost and the enemy were coming, and then the people fled into the forest of Soignes hard by, from which they again emerged when they found the report was false; and in the city of Brussels there was all day long the same excitement and alarm. Indeed the people of Brussels and the neighbourhood, who were then alive, always talk about the Battle of Waterloo with serious faces-they seem as if they could not forget the great danger to which they were then exposed. All business was suspended, shops were shut, and schools were closed, the aged trembled, the young turned pale, mothers clasped their infants to their breasts, and as the sound of cannon was heard looming from the distant field:

"Each Burgher held his breath to hear,

Those messengers of murder near,

Of rapine and of flame.

Happy the days when men will learn war no more!

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HERE and ere in the world; in this town, or in that village, there are some curious old ladies-I dont like to call them old women-who have some very odd ways of their own. I have known many such in my day. How they came to be so singular in their ways, it might not be very easy to discover; but there was a time in their history when they little dreamed of being such curious creatures as they now seem to be. Once that old lady, now leaning her bent and trembling form on her short walking stick, was a sprightly little rosy-faced lass running and skipping about in her playsomeness and glee, like a frolicing lamb in the green fields of spring timeher father and mother loved their little darling, and she grew up in health and beauty to womanhood, as vigorous and blooming as thousands are now; but what a change time has made! Her schoolfellows and companions if they have not seen her since her youthful days would now scarcely know her; and she herself feels as if she belonged to another generation which has passed away.

This may in part account for what seems to be singular in her ways. There are perhaps only a few left who were children when she was young-perhaps none. Who then can talk as she talks, and feel as she feels about days gone by? Who would sit to listen to tales of her youthful days with interest and patient attention? None!

This may be one reason, I say, why the old lady seems to be so very odd. She feels herself to be almost alone in the world. She may toddle with feeble steps and slow to the neighbouring grave-yard yonder, and as, aided by her spectacles, she makes out name after name on the stones which mark the resting-places of the sleeping dead, she can make more acquaintance with them than with the living that walk about the streets.

And then I have known some aged women who have taken to odd ways for other reasons.. I very well remember one who lived in the town in which I was born. What her real name was I do not know, but she went by the name of "Nelly Fish." Nelly had been a very fine looking woman in her dayindeed she was then, though she was getting into years. Tall and genteel in form, with a handsome ruddy countenance. Her dress, I well remember, for no one who had once seen her could ever forget it, was such as was fashionable in this country about 100 years ago. She wore high-heeled shoes and silver buckles, silk hose with spider-web clocks, an open gown with sprigged muslin apron and a rich damask petticoat, short sleeves and ruffles with long kid gloves on her arms, her hair was powdered and turned up under a round broad-brimmed bonnet like a hat and fastened by long steel pins with ornamented heads, and a great profusion of broad black lace fell over her breast and covered her shoulders. Nelly lived in a little chamber of her own which she hired as lodgings. She did not often come out, except

66 NELLY FISH."

on the fine days of summer. She had not many acquaintance, and seemed studiously to avoid conversation, especially with the male sex; for report said that when young she had been deceived by her suitor, and that the disappointment had affected her mind, and perhaps impaired her intellect. But she was quite harmless, and seemed to be fully aware of the intentions of all around her, and would keep at a distance any who rudely addressed her. I have said she had few acquaintance, or at least few with whom she would make herself familiar. I believe my own mother was her chief confidant. In those days, my mother, being a confectioner, made up great quantities of fruit as preserves, and usually in the hot days of July, Nelly would walk out to see how "Mrs. Jones," for that was the name she gave to my mother, was going on with the currants and raspberries. She would never enter the shop if one customer was in it, but when it was clear she would enter, and in the most courtly style, dropping a curtsey would say, "Good morning, Mrs. Jones; Nelly has come to see if she can help to pick the currants." My mother knew how to manage Nelly, and so placing her in a retired position, out of the way of the children and all other rude intruders, Nelly sat down, and taking off her long kid gloves, with hands and arms as fair as the lily, she would proceed to strip the red currants from their stalks with a rapidity and carefulness which none could excel. Hamper-full after hamper-full she would thus dispose of, and when poor "Nelly" went the way of all the earth, mother often lamented the want of her valuable aid at preserving-time.

This was about the only employment in which Nelly was known to engage of her own accord. She somehow or other had the means of livelihood. What they were, or whence they came, I do not know. The gentlefolks, especially those who were advanced in years, were very kind to her. But she had no

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