ABSTRACT
In one of those villages, immediately under the ridge of chalky hills, called the South Downs; where the soil changing suddenly to a strong clay, renders the country deep, and the roads bad; there dwelt, a few years since, the rector of a neighbouring parish, of the name of Lessington. In the village where he lived he was only the curate;1 chusing his residence there, because the house was larger and more commodious, than that which belonged to his own living three miles distant. His family consisted of a wife, two sons, and four daughters.
