Kate Coventry An Autobiography

s were over for that summer, and that there was nothing to look forward to till the hunting season

ing-bottles, shawls, reticules, parasols, etc., without which paraphernalia no well-bred woman can possibly travel a hundred yards. I confess I dreaded the trip. I was too well aware by experience that a railway always makes Aunt Deborah rather cross and me very sleepy; so I knew what was coming, and I was n

ell-conducted establishment, I think it is a good opportunity

I replied, quite fright

g on lately that I have taken no notice of; but it don'

s not to be neglected. "John, indeed! I'm sure, aunt, John encourages me in all my unfeminine pursuits, as you call them; and if he has been telling tales or setting

old china and fresh flowers, and conducting himself altogether as if he was either your accepted suitor or mine-and I don't think the latter very likely, Kate-whereas, you know, John--" My aunt stopped short. The ringing of the bell and loud exclamations of "Trotter's Heath! Trotter's Heath! All out for Sheepshanks, Fleecyfold, and Market Muddlebury!" announced that we had arrived at the Muddlebury Junction; and th

whiskers, the bright-blue eyes and white teeth would almost have entitled him to be considered "handsome." He had a strong, stiff-built figure, about the middle size, well made for everything but dancing, and large, useful feet encased in the stoutest double-soled shooting shoes. The latter articles of costume proved him at once to be a country gentleman. Every one must have remarked this peculiarity in that enviable class. Their attire, particularly as regards the l

ck shoes and his freckles, I could see the man was a gentleman; but, dear me, what a contrast to the smart gentlemen I had lately been accustomed to meet! Beyond a "Beg your pardon; I fear I'm very much in your way," accompanied by such a vivid blush as can be performed only by a red-haired man, the Squire did not venture on any communication either with me or my aunt; and with the latter's lecture fresh i

ugh he would have taken his hat off, and wished us "good-morning;" but his shyness got the better of him, and he disappeared from the platform, entangled amongst his dumb favourites, with a blush that was visible even at the back of his head, where the tips of his ears met

borah as he whisked by, "and not

s a bachelor, aunt?"

st the wheel; and if he had a wife, that handsome bay horse would go with another in her carriage instead of his. Besides, he wouldn't be so fond of his pointers if he h

estnuts grow up to the very windows, and dark Scotch firs shed a gloom all over the Park. Dangerfield is one of those places that seem always to be in the shade. How the strawberries ever ripen, or the flowers ever bloom, or the birds ever sing there is to me a mystery. Outside there are dark walls and yew hedges and cypresses, and here and there a copper beech, with lawns that are never mown and copses that are never thinned, to say nothing of that stagnant moat, with its sombre and prolific vegetation; whilst w

to my hand. "I'm afraid you will find it rather dull here after London;

hands are always cold and seldom clean; and she has sundry uncomfortable notions about damping the spirits of youth and checking the exuberance of its gaiety which render her a perfect terror and bugbear to the rising generation. When I was a li

s and to adopt the carriage and manners of an automaton that the girl is now a complete hypocrite. It is quite impossible to make her out. If you tickled her, I don't believe you could get her to laugh; and if you struck her, I very much doubt whether she would cry. My aunt calls it "self-command;" I call it "imbecility." She shook hands with me in her provokingly patronizing manner-"hoped I had brought my horses wi

lia looking at herself in the silver dish-covers, and when those were removed relapsing into a state of irritable torpor; and as for poor me, all I could do was to think over the pleasures of the past season, and dwell rather more than I should otherwise have done on the image of Frank Lovell, and the very agreeable acquisition he would have been to such a party. And then the evenings were, if possible, worse than the dinners-work, work, work-mum, mum, mum-till tea. And after tea Aunt Horsingham would read to us, in her dry harsh voice, long passages from the Spectator, very excellent articles from the Rambler, highly interesting in their day no doubt, but which lose some of their point after an interval of nearly a century; or, worse than

different times; and though I don't exactly believe in the spectre, I can't help sometimes crying over the incidents. The fact is, the Horsinghams were quite as proud of their ghost as they were of their

te trembled in his presence, could scarcely answer distinctly when he spoke to her, and seemed hardly to draw breath in freedom save when out of his sight. Such a state of things could have but one ending-distrust and suspicion on one side, unqualified aversion on the other. A marriage, never of inclination, as indeed in those days amongst great families few marriages were, became an insupportable slavery ere the first year of wedded life had elapsed; and by the time an heir was born to the house of Horsingham, probably there was no unhappier couple within fifty miles of Dangerfield than dark Sir Hugh and his pretty, fair-haired, gentle wife. No; she ought never to have married him at all. It was but the night before her wedding that she walked in the garden of her father's old manor-house with a bright, open-hearted, handsome youth, whose brow wore that expression of acute agony which it is so pitiable to witness on a young countenance-that look almost of physic

r Hugh Horsingham-not that he had the slightest right to exact such a promise-and she felt bound to fulfil it. She never remembered the injury she was doing "Cousin Edward," the right which such devotion as his ought to have given him. She knew she loved him better tha

ore, Lucy," he said, and his eye glared fiercely in the waning light-"once more, will you give me one word, or never set eyes on me again?" Her lip never moved. "I give you till we pass that tree"-he looked dangerous now-"and then"-he swore a great oath-"I