OF THE FOREST. iil

church was a large black-timbered house,
with two gable ends pointed with wooden
crosses, where lived a decayed gentlewoman,
a widow, whom I shall call Madame Bulé.

This lady, being an accomplished woman
for that day, and much reduced in her for-
tune, received young ladies into her house
for their education, and was, I believe, as far
as the dark state of her mind would admit, a
faithful and laborious guide to her young
people.

Near to Madame Bulé’s seminary was my
own little mansion, nay, so near that the
window of my study, which was an upper
room, projected over the garden wall of the
seminary ; and I used often to amuse my-
self by showering bonbons from thence upon
the little ones who were assembled on the
lawn beneath.

From the period of my entering my cure
until I was more than forty years of age, I
enjoyed a long interval of comparative peace.
I was fond of a retived life. I had a par-
ticular delight in the study of nature, and in