The Holly-Tree.

[PUBLISHED IN "HOUSEHOLD WORDS," IN DECEMBER, 1855.]

THIS is the story of a gentleman, who, imagining himself to have been supplanted in the affections of a young lady, resolves to go straight to America - on his "way to the Devil." Before starting, however, he finds occasion to make a visit to a certain place on the farther borders of Yorkshire, and on the way thither he gets snowed up for a week at the Holly-Tree Inn, where he finds himself the only guest. Sitting by the fire in the principal room, he reads through all the books in the house; namely, a "Book of Roads," a little song-book terminating in a collection of toasts and sentiments, a little jest-book, an odd volume of "Peregrine Pickle," and "The Sentimental Journey," to say nothing of two or three old newspapers. These being exhausted, he endeavors to while away the time by recalling his experience of inns, and his remembrances of those he has heard or read of. He further beguiles the days of his imprisonment by talking, at one time or another, with the whole establishment, not excepting the " Boots," who, lingering in the room one day, tells him a story about a young gentleman not eight years old, who runs off with a young lady of seven to Gretna Green, and puts up at the HollyTree. When the roads are at last broken out, and just as the disconsolate traveller is on the point of resuming his journey, a carriage drives up, and out jumps his (as he supposes) successful rival, who is running away to Gretna too. It turns out, however, that the lady he has with him is not the one with whom the traveller is in love, but her cousin. The fugitives are hastened on their way; and the traveller retraces his steps without delay, goes straight to London, and marries the girl whom he thought he had lost forever.

CHARACTERS INTRODUCED.

Boots. See COBBS.

Charley. Guest at the Holly-Tree Inn; a self-supposed rejected man; in love with Angela Leath.

Cobbs. The "Boots" at the Holly-Tree Inn; formerly under-gardener at Mr. Walmers's.

Edwin. Supposed rival of Charley, the guest at the Holly-Tree; betrothed to Emmeline.

Emmeline. Cousin to Angela Leath. She elopes with her lover, Edwin, and is married to him at Gretna Green.

George. Guard of a coach.

Leath, Angela. The lady-love and afterwards the wife of Charley (the Holly-Tree guest), who for a time deludes himself into thinking that she prefers his friend Edwin.

Norah. Cousin to Master Harry Walmers, junior, with whom she runs away from home, intending to go to Gretna Green, and be married to him. She is, however, overtaken and carried home, and long afterwards becomes the wife of a captain; and finally dies in India. Walmers, Master Harry, junior. A bright boy, not quite eight years old, who falls in love with his cousin, a little girl of seven, and starts with her for Gretna Green, to get married. Stopping at the Holly-Tree Inn in their journey, they are recognized by the " Boots," who had been in the service of the young gentleman's father. The landlord immediately sets off for York to inform the parents of the two little runaways of their whereabouts. They return late at night; and Mr. Walmers,

"The door being opened, goes in, goes up to the bedside, bends gently down, and kisses the little sleeping face; then he stands looking at it for a minute, looking wonderfully like it (they do say he ran away with Mrs. Walmers); and then he gently shakes the little shoulder.

"Harry, my dear boy! Harry!'

"Master Harry starts up and looks at his pa,-looks at me too. Such is the honor of that mite, that he looks at me, to see whether he has brought me into trouble.

"I am not angry, my child. I only want you to dress yourself and come home.'

"Please, may I' (the spirit of that little creature!), 'please, dear pa, — may I-kiss Norah before I go?'

"You may, my child.'

"So he takes Master Harry in his hand, and I leads the way with the candle to that other bedroom, where the elderly lady is seated by the bed, and poor There the father lifts the boy

little Mrs. Harry Walmers, junior, is fast asleep. up to the pillow, and he lays his little face down for an instant by the little warm face of poor little Mrs. Harry Walmers, junior, and gently draws it to him, ,—a sight so touching to the chambermaids, who are a-peeping through the door, that one of them calls out, 'It's a shame to part 'em!'

"Finally," Boots says, "that's all about it. Mr. Walmers drove away in the chaise, having hold of Master Harry's hand. The elderly lady and Mrs. Harry Walmers, junior, that was never to be, went off next day." In conclusion, Boots puts it to me whether I hold with him in two opinions: firstly, that there are not many couples on their way to be married who are half as innocent as them two children; secondly, that it would be a jolly good thing for a great many couples on their way to be married, if they could only be stopped in time, and brought back separate.

Walmers, Mr. The father of Master Harry; a gentleman living at the "Elmses," near Shooter's Hill, six or seven miles from London. "Boots" thus describes him:

He was a gentleman of spirit, and good-looking, and held his head up when he walked, and had what you may call "fire" about him. He wrote poetry, and he rode, and he ran, and he cricketed, and he danced, and he acted; and he done it all equally beautiful. He was uncommon proud of Master Harry, as was his only child; but he did n't spoil him, neither. He was a gentleman that had a will of his own, and a eye of his own, and that would be minded.

Little Dorrit.

ON the first day of December, 1856, the first number of this tale was issued; and the twentieth and last number made its appearance in June, 1857. The work was illustrated by Hablot K. Browne; and on its completion it was dedicated to the late Clarkson Stanfield, the eminent landscape-painter. The main object of the author was to expose the vexatious procrastination, the indirectness, and the ineptitude, of governmental routine in the transaction of the public business; and this was done in the description of the Circumlocution Office, as managed by the inefficient and supercilious Barnacle family. Another object was to call attention to the evil effects of imprisonment for debt, particularly in the case of persons wholly unable to discharge the claims of their creditors, or to render a full and satisfactory explanation of all the debts and liabilities they had incurred, conformably to the indispensable condition of release imposed by the Insolvent Court. A third object was to hold up to ridicule the snobbery which delights to pay homage to mere wealth, like that of Mr. Merdle.

CHARACTERS INTRODUCED.

Aunt, Mr. F's. See MR. F's. AUNT.

Bangham, Mrs. A charwoman and messenger; nurse of Mrs. Dorrit in the Marshalsea Prison, (Bk. I, ch. vi, vii; Bk. II, ch. xix.) Barnacle, Clarence, called BARNACLE, JUNIOR. Son of Mr. Tite Barnacle; an empty-headed young gentleman employed in the Circumlocution Office. (Bk. I, ch. x, xvii, xxxiv, xxxv.)

....

[He] had a youthful aspect, and the fluffiest little whisker, perhaps, that ever was seen. Such a downy tip was on his callow chin, that he seemed half-fledged, like a young bird; He had a superior eyeglass dangling round his neck, but unfortunately had such flat orbits to his eyes, and such limp little eyelids, that it would n't stick in when he put it up, but kept tumbling out against his waistcoat buttons with a click that discomposed him very much.

Barnacle, Lord Decimus Tite. Uncle of Mr. Tite Barnacle; a windy peer, high in the Circumlocution Office. (Bk. I, ch. xxvii, xxv, xxxiv; Bk. II, ch. vii, xxiv, xxviii.)

The Circumlocution Office was (as everybody knows without being told) the most important department under government. No public business of any kind could possibly be done at any time without the acquiescence of the Circumlocution Office. Its finger was in the largest public pie and in the smallest public tart. It was equally impossible to do the plainest right, and to undo the plainest wrong, without the express authority of the Circumlocution Office. If another gunpowder plot had been discovered half an hour before the lighting of the match, nobody would have been justified in saving the parliament until there had been half a score of boards, half a bushel of minutes, several sacks of official memoranda, and a family vault full of ungrammatical correspondence, on the part of the Circumlocution Office.

This glorious establishment had been early in the field when the one sublime principle involving the difficult art of governing a country was first distinctly revealed to statesmen. It had been foremost to study that bright revelation, and to carry its shining influence through the whole of the official proceedings. Whatever was required to be done, the Circumlocution Office was beforehand with all the public departments in the art of perceiving-HOW NOT TO DO

The Circumlocution Office went on mechanically, every day, keeping this wonderful, all-sufficient wheel of statesmanship, "How not to do it," in motion. The Circumlocution Office was down upon any ill-advised public servant who was going to do it, or who appeared to be, by any surprising accident, in remote danger of doing it, with a minute, and a memorandum, and a letter of instructions, that extinguished him. It was this spirit of national efficiency in the Circumlocution Office that had gradually led to its having something to do with every thing. Mechanicians, natural philosophers, soldiers, sailors, petitioners, memorialists, people with grievances, people who wanted to prevent grievances, people who wanted to redress grievances, jobbing people, jobbed people, people who could n't get rewarded for merit, and people who could n't get punished for demerit, were all indiscriminately tucked up under the foolscap paper of the Circumlocution Office.

Unfortunates

Numbers of people were lost in the Circumlocution Office. with wrongs, or with projects for the general welfare (and they had better have had wrongs at first than have taken that bitter English recipe for certainly getting them), who in slow lapse of time and agony had passed safely through other public departments, who, according to rule, had been bullied in this, over-reached by that, and evaded by the other, got referred at last to the Circumlocution Office, and never re-appeared in the light of day. Boards sat upon them, secretaries minuted upon them, commissioners gabbled about them, clerks registered, entered, checked, and ticked them off, and they melted away. In short, all the business of the country went through the Circumlocution Office, except the business that never came out of it; and its name was Legion.

In the great art "How not to do it," Lord Decimus had long sustained the highest glory of the Barnacle family; and let any ill-advised member of either house but try how to do it by bringing in a bill to do it, that bill was as good as dead and buried when Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle rose up in his place, and solemnly said, soaring into indignant majesty as the Circumlocution cheering