Over to Candleford

he hamlet people saw none of these changes. They were far from the industrial districts and their surroundings remained as they had been from the time of their birth. No cottage had been added to the little group in the fields for many years, and, as it turned out, none were to be added for at least a half century; perhaps never, for the hamlet stands to-day unchanged in its outward appearance.

Queen Victoria was on the throne. She had been well established there before either of Laura's parents were born, and it seemed to her and her brother that she had always been Queen and always would be. But plenty of elderly people could remember her Coronation and could tell them what church bells had pealed all day in the different villages and what oxen had been roasted whole and what bonfires had been lighted at night.

'Our little English rose', the Rector said had then been her subjects' name for her, and Laura often thought of that when she studied the portrait which hung, framed and glazed, in the