of her petticoats afforded ample opportunity of admiring, with heavy wooden shoes, and you have a complete picture of Dutch Anna’s costume.  At the time I speak of, the prejudice entertained by the mass of the people against foreigners was much greater than in the present day, when the means of communication between different countries are so much improved, and the general diffusion of knowledge has shown the unreasonableness of regarding with distrust and contempt those of our fellow-creatures who have been born in a different climate, and trained in different customs to our own.  It may therefore be readily imagined that Anna was for a time regarded with suspicion and jealousy, for the very reason which ought to have commanded the sympathy and good-will of her neighbours—­’that she was a stranger in the land.’  Her mode of life perhaps increased the prejudice against her.  Respecting the reason of her voluntary exile, she preserved a studied silence; though I afterwards learned that the persecution she endured from her own family on the subject of religion was the principal cause.  Our village adjoined a populous manufacturing district, and Anna, having been accustomed to such occupation, soon obtained employment.  Being a person of a peculiarly reserved and serious turn of mind, she could not endure the thought of living in lodgings; and as she was not able to furnish or pay the rent of a cottage, she hired for a trifling sum an old lonely barn belonging to my father, who was a small farmer, and, with the labour of her own hands, managed to put it into a habitable condition.  The furniture of this rude dwelling was simple enough, consisting of a bed of clean straw, a round deal table, and two three-legged stools.  The whitewashed walls were ornamented with coloured prints on Scripture subjects, framed and glazed; and a small looking-glass, placed in a position to secure the best light afforded by the little window, completed the decorations.  Various were the conjectures formed by the villagers respecting this inoffensive though singular woman; and many were the stories circulated, all tending to keep alive the prejudice her eccentricities were calculated to excite.

A casual circumstance, which led to my becoming obliged to Anna, at length enabled me to overcome the suspicion and dislike with which our neighbour was regarded.  Our acquaintance speedily ripened into friendship; for with the reaction natural to the generous, I felt as though I could never sufficiently compensate for my former injustice towards her.  Often in an evening I would put on my bonnet, and, taking my work with me, go to spend a leisure hour with Dutch Anna; and on these occasions she generally entertained me with descriptions of her own country, and of the customs and manners of its inhabitants; or with striking anecdotes and incidents which had come under her own personal observation; never failing to draw some useful moral or illustrate some important truth from what she related.