EXPERIENCE;

OR,

The Houng Church-Woman.

A TALE OF THE TIMES.

BY

M. E. S. B.

DEDICATED TO HER FATHER.

LONDON:

BINNS AND GOODWIN, 44, FLEET STREET;

AND 19, CHEAP STREET, BATH.

1854.

249.4.376.

PREFACE.

IN offering the following little work to the public, I do so with many fears respecting the reception with which it will meet, and the criticisms and opinions which may be formed regarding it. Doubtless it is very faulty in style and composition, and this fact makes me deem it necessary to say a few words of explanation.

It has been suggested to me, that being the daughter of a clergyman, any writings of mine will naturally be supposed to emanate in some degree from the mind of my father; thus, any censure falling upon me, will also pass upon him. I, therefore, beg to state that no one even read through, much less revised or corrected, this tale; the manuscript went straight from my own hands to those of the publishers. It may have been an injudicious proceeding,

a

but so it was, and on my head alone, must all blame rest.

I earnestly hope, however, feeble though it be, that it savours not of error, but that its tiny weight in the scale of good, may be blessed for good. There is a well known old Scotch saying; "Every mickle makes a muckle"; and every small effort on the right side, but tends to swell the power of truth, as every fairy rill from the mountain, flows on and on, till, joining another, and another, and another, it swells into a mighty torrent of overwhelming force. M. E. S. B.

September, 1854.

EXPERIENCE;

OR,

THE YOUNG CHURCH-WOMAN.

CHAPTER I.

WHAT Englishman is there, that does not love and is not proud of the rural villages of his native land ? The pretty white-washed cottages, with their deeplythatched roofs, and honey-suckle or jasmine decked walls, enclosed within small but neatly kept gardens of useful vegetables and herbs, interspersed amongst which, and skirting the prim gravel walks, may be seen bright and radiant flowers of varied hues ; from the gaudy sun-flower down to the modest pansy, or (as their little ones would call it) "look-up-and-kissme;" and the never-to-be-omitted favorites of the cottager, the rosemary and southernwood.

It may be that all these habitations are not equally neat and attractive; for, whilst the dwellings of the industrious poor are thus worthy of our admiration, possessing pleasing exteriors, and clean and tidy

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