BRAMPTON-AMONG-THE-ROSES.
tabel Brampton. I went down Among-the-Roses to
stand godfather to the son and heir of a very old friend,
who knew the Brampton family, and had married a
farmer's blooming daughter, and at the Christening
Dinner got into conversation with the very intelligent
young curate who sprinkled my little godson at the
ancient font, where many a departed Brampton, I have
no doubt, had awakened the silence of the grey-
mouldering, time-worn edifice, by crying as lustily
under similar circumstances. Little Christabel, he
told me, was an exception to all the children he had
christened, and with wide-staring blue eyes looked up
into his face and smiled while he sprinkled her with
water from the old well, out of which many a dead
Royalist had quenched his thirst, and drawn water for
his reeking war-horse when it came up flecked with
foam from the battle-field.
 As Christabel's father was such a large sheep
breeder, he employed a good many shepherds, and
almost as soon as she could run she went out with them
among the folds and into the lambing-paddocks, and
established herself as nurse to the sickly lambs. The
shepherds said with all their experience and care they
could not rear the lambs so well as Christabel. She
wrapped them up warm in wool, and fed them upon
new milk, and kept them before the fire in the cold
days of receding winter and early spring, and would
not permit them to be left out all night in the lambing
folds, and as the great kitchen was large enough for
a good big fold, she brought all in that seemed ailing
and didn't take kindly to the ewes, until they were
strong enough and began to bleat for their dams.
 As there were lambing-paddocks for miles round
 the house, she made many a journey by herself to see
 how the little lombs progressed, and very seldom