I must despair of being able in simple narrative to convey the remotest idea of the dullness of Dangerfield Hall; but as during my residence there I beguiled the weary hours by keeping a diary (bound in blue velvet, with brass clasps and a Bramah lock), I have it in my power, by transcribing a few of its pages, to present to my readers my own impressions of life in that well-regulated establishment. I put things down just as they happened, with my own reflections, more or less philosophical, on the events of each day. My literary labours were invariably carried on after the family had retired for the night; and I may observe that a loose white dressing-gown, trimmed with Mechlin lace and pink ribbons—one's hair, of course, being "taken down"—is a costume extremely well adapted to the efforts of composition. I take a day from the diary at random.

Thursday.—Up at half-past seven; peeped in the glass the instant I was out of bed, and wondered how Cousin Amelia looks when she wakes. Yellowish, I should think, and by no means captivating, particularly if she wears a nightcap. I don't care how ugly a woman is, she has no right to look anything but fresh in the morning; and yet how few possess this advantage! Nothing like open air and plenty of exercise; saving one's complexion is undoubtedly the very way to spoil it. Saw Brilliant and White Stockings going to exercise in the Park. What coddles they look on these fine autumn mornings, covered with clothing! Felt very keen about hunting; the same feeling always comes on at the fall of the leaf; shouldn't wonder if I could jump a gate, with my present nerves. Should like once in my life to plant a field of horsemen, and show these gentlemen how a woman can ride. Interrupted in my daydreams by Lady Horsingham's bell, and huddled on my things in a tremendous hurry; forced to wash my hands in cold water, which made the tips of my fingers as red as radishes for the rest of the day. Got down to prayers by half-past eight, and took Aunt Deborah her tea and toast from the breakfast-table at nine.

Breakfast dull, and most of the party cross: Aunt Horsingham is generally out of humour at breakfast-time, particularly on Sundays. Cousin Amelia suggested my towels were too coarse: "they had rubbed a colour into my cheeks like a dairymaid's." John said I looked like a rose—a tea-rose, he added, as I handed him his cup. Cousin John is getting quite poetical, and decidedly improved since he left London. I wonder whom he got that letter from that was lying on his plate when he came down. I am not curious, but I just glanced at the direction, and I am certain it was in a lady's hand. Not that it's any business of mine; only I should think Miss Molasses would hardly have the face to write to him. I wonder whether there is anything between John and Miss Molasses. I asked him, half spitefully, the other day how he could bear to be parted from her now the season was over; and he seemed so pleased at my taking an interest in the thing at all that I had no patience to go on with my cross-questioning. I don't think she's good enough for John, I must confess; but he is easily imposed on by young ladies—as indeed, for that matter, are the rest of his great thick-headed sex. When breakfast was over and Cousin Amelia went off as usual to practise her music for an hour or two, I thought I might steal away for a visit to my favourites in the stable; indeed I saw John at the front door in a hideous wide-awake, with a long cigar in his mouth. But I was waylaid by Aunt Horsingham; and as these visits to the stable are strictly forbidden, I was obliged to follow her into the drawing-room, and resign myself for the whole morning to that dreadful worsted-work, more especially as it was coming on a drizzling mist, and there was no pretext for my usual walk.

"I am glad to see you getting more sociable, Kate," said Lady Horsingham, in her dry, harsh voice, as I took a seat beside her and opened my work-basket. "It is never advisable for any young lady to affect singularity, and I have observed with some concern that your demeanour on many occasions is very unlike that of the rest of your sex."

I never give in to Aunt Horsingham—after all she's not my own aunt—so I answered as pertly as ever I could:

"No: you mean I don't spend the morning in looking in the glass and talking evil of my neighbours; I don't scream when I see a beetle, or go into convulsions because there's a mouse in the room. I've got two legs, very good legs, Aunt Horsingham—shall I show you them?—and I like to use them, and to be out of doors amongst the trees and the grass and the daisies, instead of counting stitches for work that nobody wants or writing letters that nobody reads. I had rather give Brilliant a good 'bucketing' (Aunt Horsingham shuddered; I knew she would, and used the word on purpose) over an open heath or a line of grass than go bodkin in a chariot, seven miles an hour, and both windows up. Thank you, Aunt Horsingham; you would like to make a fine lady of me—a useless, sickly, lackadaisical being instead of a healthy, active, light-hearted woman. Much obliged to you; I had rather stay as I am."

"Miss Coventry," said my aunt, who was completely posed by my volubility, and apparently shocked beyond the power of expression at my opinions—"Miss Coventry," she repeated, "if these are indeed your sentiments, I must beg—nay, I must insist—on your keeping them to yourself whilst under this roof.—Amelia, my dear" (to my cousin, who was gliding quietly into the room)—"Amelia, go back to your music for ten minutes.—I must insist, Miss Coventry, that you do not inoculate my daughter with these pernicious doctrines—this mistaken view of the whole duties and essentials of your sex. Do you think men appreciate a woman who, if she had but a beard, would be exactly like one of themselves? Do you think they like to see their ideal hot and dishevelled, plastered with mud, and draggled with wet? Do you think they wish her to be strong and independent of them, and perhaps their superior at those very sports and exercises on which they plume themselves? Do you think they are to be taken by storm, and, so to speak, bullied into admiration? You're wrong, Kate, you're wrong; and I believe I am equally wrong to talk to you in this strain, inasmuch as the admiration of the other sex ought to be the last thing coveted or thought of by a young person of yours."

"I'm sure, aunt, I don't want the men to admire me," I replied; "but I would not give much for the admiration of one who could be jealous of me for so paltry a cause as my riding better than himself; and as for ideals, I don't know much about such things, but I think a man's ideal may do pretty well what she likes, and he is sure to think everything she does do is perfect. Besides, I don't see why I should bully him into liking me because I'm fond of the beautiful 'out of doors' instead of the fireside. And courageous women, like courageous men, are generally a deal more gentle than the timid ones. I've known ladies who would not venture into a carriage or a boat who could wage a war of words bitterer than the veriest trooper would have at his command; and I've heard Cousin John say that there is scarcely an instance of a veritable heroine in history, from Joan of Arc downwards, who was not in her private life as sweet, as gentle, and as womanly as she was high-couraged and undaunted when the moment came that summoned her energies to the encounter. Unselfishness is the cause in both cases, you may depend. People that are always so dreadfully afraid something is going to happen to them think a great deal more of self than anything else; and the same cause which makes them tremble at imaginary danger for their own sakes will make them forgetful of real sufferings in which they themselves have no share. I had rather be a hoyden, Aunt Horsingham, and go on in my own way. I have much more enjoyment; and, upon my word, I don't think I'm one bit a worse member of society than if I was the most delicate fine lady that ever fainted away at the overpowering smell of a rose leaf or the merry peal of a noisy child's laugh."

My aunt lifted up her hands and gave in, for the return of Cousin Amelia from the music-room effectually prevented further discussion; and we beguiled the time till luncheon by alternate fits of scandal and work, running through the characters of most of the neighbours within twenty miles, and completely demolishing the reputation of my friend, as they called her—lively, sarcastic little Mrs. Plumridge. John was off rabbit-shooting, so of course he did not appear at that meal so essential to ladies; and after Cousin Amelia, by way of being delicate, had got through two cutlets, the best part of a chicken, a plateful of rice-pudding, and a large glass of sherry, I ventured to propose to her that if the afternoon held up we should have a walk.

"I'm not equal to much fatigue," said she, with a languid air and a heavy look about her eyes which I attributed to the luncheon; "but if you like we'll go to the garden and the hothouses, and be back in time for a cup of tea at five o'clock."

"Anything to get out of the house," was my reply, and forthwith I rushed upstairs, two steps at a time, to put on my things; whilst my aunt whispered to her daughter, loud enough for me to hear, "She really ought to have been a man, Emmy; did you ever see such a hoyden in your life?"

It was pleasant to get out even into that formal garden. The day was soft and misty, such as one often finds it towards the close of autumn—dark without being chill—and the withered leaves strewed the earth in all the beauty of wholesome natural decay. Autumn makes some people miserable; I confess it is the time of year that I like best. Spring makes me cross if it's bad weather, and melancholy if it's fine. Summer is very enjoyable certainly, but it has a luxuriance of splendour that weighs down my spirits; and in those glorious hot, dreamy haymaking days I seem unable to identify myself sufficiently with all the beauty around me, and to pine for I don't exactly know what. Winter is charming when it don't freeze, with its early candle-light and long evenings; but autumn combines everything that to me is most delightful—the joys of reality and the pleasures of anticipation. Cousin Amelia don't think so at all.

"A nasty raw day, Kate," she remarked as we emerged from the hothouse into the moist, heavy air. "How I hate the country! except whilst the strawberries are ripe. Let's go back to the house, and read with our feet on the fender till tea-time."

"Not yet, Emmy," I pleaded, for I really pined for a good walk; "let's go on the highroad as far as the milestone—it's market day at Muddlebury, and we shall see the tipsy farmers riding home and the carriers' carts with their queer-looking loads; besides, think what a colour you'll have for dinner. Come on, there's a dear!"

The last argument was unanswerable; and Cousin Amelia putting her best foot foremost, we soon cleared the garden and the approach, and emerged on the highroad three miles from Muddlebury, and well out of the sight of the windows of Dangerfield Hall. As we rose the hill, on the top of which is perched the well-known milestone, and my cousin began already to complain of fatigue, the sound of hoofs behind us caused us both to stop and look round.

"It's cavalry," said Amelia, who jumps rather rapidly to conclusions, and is no judge of a horse.

"It's a stud," was my reply; "somebody coming to hunt with 'the Heavy-top.' Let's stand in this gateway and see them pass." We took up a position accordingly; and if I felt keen about the commencement of the season previously, how much more so did I become to watch the string of gallant well-bred horses now jogging quietly towards us with all the paraphernalia and accessories of the chase!

Two, four, six, and a hack, all clothed and hooded, and packed for travelling. Such a chestnut in the van, with a minute boy on him, who cannot have weighed four stone; strong, flat, sinewy legs (the chestnut's, not the boy's), hocks and thighs clean, full, and muscular as Brilliant's, only twice the size; a long, square tail, and a wicked eye. How I should like to ride that chestnut! Then a brown and two bays, one of the latter scarcely big enough for a hunter, to my fancy, but apparently as thoroughbred as Eclipse; then a gray, who seemed to have a strong objection to being led, and who held back and dragged at his rein in a most provoking manner; and lastly, by the side of a brown hack that I fancied I had seen before, a beautiful black horse, the very impersonation of strength, symmetry, courage, speed, and all that a horse should be.

"Ask the groom whose they are," whispered Amelia as he went by. "I don't quite like to speak to him; he looks an impudent fellow with those dark whiskers."

I should like to see the whiskers that would frighten me; so I stepped boldly out into the road, and accosted him at once.

"Whose horses are those, my man?" I asked, with my most commanding air.

"Captain Lovell's, miss," was the reply. My heart jumped into my mouth, and you might have knocked me down with a feather.

"Captain Lovell's!" exclaimed Amelia; "why, that's your old flirt,
Kate. I see it all now." But I hardly heard her, and when I looked up
the horses were a mile off, and we were retracing our steps towards
Dangerfield Hall.

What a happy day this has been, and how unpromising was its beginning! And yet I don't know why I should have been so happy. After all, there is nothing extraordinary in Captain Lovell's sending down a stud of horses to hunt with so favourite a pack as "the Heavy-top" hounds. I wish I had summoned courage to ask the man when his master was coming and where he was going to stay; but I really couldn't do it—no, not if my life depended on it. All the way home Cousin Amelia laughed and sneered and chattered, and once she acknowledged I was "the best-tempered girl in the world;" but I am sure I have not an idea why I deserve this character. Her words fell perfectly unheeded on my ear. I was glad to get to the solitude of my own room, when it was time to dress for dinner, that I might have the luxury, if it was only for five minutes, of thinking undisturbed. But there was Aunt Deborah to be attended to; for poor Aunt Deborah, I am sorry to say, is by no means well. And Gertrude came in "to do my hair;" and then the dinner-bell rang, and the wearisome meal, and the long evening dragged on in their accustomed monotony. But I did not find it as dull as usual, though I was more rejoiced than ever when the hand-candles came and we were dismissed to go to bed.

And now they are all fast asleep, and I can sit at my open window and think, think, think as much as I like. What a lovely night it is! The mist has cleared off, and the moat is glistening in the moonlight, and the old trees are silvered over and blackened alternately by its beams; the church tower stands out massively against the sky. How dark the old belfry looks on such a night as this, contrasting with the white tombstones in the churchyard, and the slated roof shimmering above the aisle! There is a faint breeze sighing amongst the few remaining leaves, now rising into a pleading whisper, now dying away with a sad, unearthly moan. The deer are moving restlessly about the Park, now standing out in bold relief on some open space brightened by the moonlight, now flitting like spectres athwart the shade. Everything breathes of romance and illusion; and I do believe it is very bad for one to be watching here, dreaming wide awake, instead of snoring healthily in bed. I wonder what he is about at this moment. Perhaps smoking a cigar out of doors, and enjoying this beautiful night. I wonder what he is thinking of. Perhaps, after all, he's stewed up in some lamplit drawing-room talking nonsense to Lady Scapegrace and Mrs. Lumley, or playing that odious whist at his club. Well, I suppose I may as well go to bed. One more look into the night, and then—hark! what is it? how beautiful, how charming! Distant music from the wood at the low end of the Park. The deer are all listening, and now they troop down towards the noise in scores. How softly it dies away and rises again! 'Tis a cornet-À-piston, I think, and though not very skilfully played it sounds heavenly by moonlight. I never thought that old air of "You'll Remember Me" half so beautiful before. Who can it be? I have never heard it since I came here. It can't be Captain Lovell's groom; it's not quite impossible it might be Captain Lovell himself. Ah, if I thought that! Well, it has ceased now. I may as well go to bed. What a happy day this has been, and what dreams I shall have!