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time ; and of three people in particular, whose queer little history was oddly touched at points by the Exhibition, more concerned with it than that of anybody elae who dwelt in those outlying shades of the world, Stickleford, Melistock, and Egdon, First in prominence among these threes came Wat Ollamoor—if that were his real name.

He was a woman’s man—supremely so—and externally very little else. To men he was not attractive ; perhaps a little repulsive at times, Musician, dandy, and company-man in practice; veterinary surgeon in theory, be lodged awhile in Mellstock village, coming from nobody knew where; though some said his first appearance in this neighborhood had been as fiddle-player in a show at Greenhill Fair.

Many a worthy villager envied him his power over unsophisticated maidenhood—a power which seemed sometimes to have a touch of the weird and wizardly in it, Personally he was not ill-favored, though rather un-English, his complexion being a rich olive, his rank hair dark and rather clammy—made still clammier by secret ointments, which, when he came fresh to a party, caused him to smell like “boys’-love” (southernwoed) steeped in lamp-cil. On occasion he wore curle—a double row—running almost horizontally around his head. But aa these were sometimes noticeably absent, it was concluded that they were not altogether of Nature’s making. By girls whose love for him had turned to hatred he had been nicknamed “ Mop,” from thie abundance of hair, which was long enough to reat upon his shoulders; as time passed, the name more and more prevailed.

His fiddling, possibly, had the most to do with the fascination he exercised, for, to speak fairly, it could claim for itself a most peculiar and personal quality, like that in 8 moving preacher. There were tones in