her mother's foot, and walked off into the inner room. Whether any clear thought then passed through Mrs. Barfoot's mind that Sally was unkind, unjust, and disrespectful, I cannot tell; but her heart seemed to sink even lower than before, and when some little while afterwards, she lay down to forget her troubles in sleep, some slow tears trickled silently from her weary eyes, and broke the rest which her body so much needed. In the soft chilly mist of the October morning, Mrs. Barfoot set off on her long walk to the Parsonage and the more distant village; but the bright, high sun had warmed and cleared the air and dried the moisture on the heather before she returned. All that time Sally had to take care of the baby, and to feed it as well as she could by hand, which Mrs. Barfoot sometimes did herself, and she was very steady and careful with the poor little thing, though sometimes feeling very much out of patience with its cries and Johnny's troublesomeness. "Let me take the child a bit?" said Mrs. Fleetwell, as Sally was standing out in the sunshine with it in her arms in the afternoon. "Let me take it? I wonder whatever your mother can be doing to be out so long." Sally was very thankful to get rid of her burden for a little while, and wondered too, whether her mother ever meant to come back. She took Johnny to the top of a sandy hillock, a little way off, from which they could see farther across the heath in the direction that she would be coming. A nest of ferns in a small hollow made a nice resting-place for Johnny, and Sally sat above him looking out across the brown swelling heath, with its sandy zigzag tracks, and distant purple lines. But she looked in vain for some time. Not a living creature was to be seen moving up and over the uneven paths. At last there was a dark spot far away on a rise of the heath. Sally was not certain whether she had seen it before. It might be only a tuft of furze, but as she looked it disappeared, and then she thought it must be some one walking down into a hollow. Presently it rose again larger and clearer, and then she was sure it was her mother, with her dusky old red shawl, brightened by the clear sunshine. "She is a terrible time coming along," thought Sally; and so indeed she was, for she was loaded with a heavy basket, and as she came nearer you could see that she could hardly set one foot before the other. Her head was so bent downwards that she passed not many yards from the hillock without observing Sally, and when the latter tried to make Johnny get up and go home, he did not pay any heed to what she said, but lay on his back amidst the ferns, looking up dreamily into the deep clear sky. Sally was generally pretty patient with him, but now she was in a hurry to go after her mother, and hear what she had been doing, and she tried to lift him rather roughly, telling him that he must come with her directly. But Johnny threw himself down again, and set up one of his dismal howls, and it was only by main force that Sally at last dragged him homewards, screaming all the way. Her mother was in the house, and after sitting down for one minute to rest her weary limbs, was beginning to unpack her great basket, and on the little rough table was a sight which made Sally at once let go her hold of Johnny, who slipped away unnoticed to his fern-nest again. (To be Continued.) PALANQUINS AND THEIR BEARERS. THE mode of travelling in India, is in palanquins carried by men, who change at different stages, as a coach, or carriage changes its horses. The Palanquin is made of wood and wickerwork, and painted and ornamented like an English carriage. Mr. Acland's was six feet six inches long, three feet three inches broad, and the same in height. It is provided with mattresses, cushions, and a blanket, so that the traveller can sleep in it, for there are no inns to rest in, and travelling is done more by night than by day, on account of the heat. There are also convenient little pockets, shelves and boxes, for books, provisions, bottles, or whatever he may want. There is also a lamp for night use, so that it is a pleasant luxurious mode of travelling, except for the painful feeling of being carried by men. The bearers, however, being trained to the work, do not seem to suffer from this labour, nor to lose their spirits and cleverness from being engaged in what we should be disposed to feel a degrading employment. They lighten their toil with songs; and trusting to their language, which in most cases is unknown to those they carry, they indulge in some amusing comments on their burdens. Mr. Acland speaks of himself as growing very fat in India; so that this was the point (a very important one to them) on which the bearers in his case chose to indulge their humour. He says, "I ought to mention the chant of the palanquin-bearers; though they keep to the same sing-song tune, they generally invent the words as they go along., I will give a sample as well as I could make it out, of what my bearers sang the other night. I have tried to render their could into English, so as to The poetry might be immeans a palanquin, it is the Hindostanee word, though one also generally used both in conversation. words as nearly as I preserve the metre. proved. A palkee "Each line is sung in a different voice. In the following, for instance, the first line would be sung in the usual voice, the second very high, the third in a sort of gruff tone : Oh, what a heavy bag! He is an awful weight, Let's throw his palkee down- Let's leave him to his fate. No; for he'll be angry then ; Aye, and he will beat us then Then let's make haste and get along, And suiting the action to the word, off they set in a nasty jog-trot, which rattled every bone in my body, keeping chorus all the time of Jump along quick, jump along quick,' until they were obliged to stop for laughing. "The second sample is from the men who carried Mrs. Acland, and is in quite a different metre. I must tell you that 'Cubbadar,' means 'take care;' and 'baba,' (pronounced 'barba') means 'young lady:' 'She's not heavy, Little baba, Trim the torches, For the road's rough, Carry her gently, Little baba, Sing so cheerily, Cubbadar! "It is customary at the end of each stage to make the palkees a present of four annas (or sixpence) for each palkee. During one of the stages between Barripore and Cuttack, the men did not go so quickly as I thought they should have done; so when we changed men, I only gave them four annas for the two palkees, telling them why I did so. The consequence was that |