Next time, I want to see Stonehenge from an airship, or, at a pinch, a balloon, because I can judge better of the original form, the two circles and the two ellipses, which the handsomest policeman I ever saw out of a Christmas Annual explained to me, pacing the rough grass. He lives at Stonehenge all day, with a dog, and they are both guardians. I asked him if he had not beautiful thoughts, but he said, not in winter, Miss, it was too cold to think then, except about hot soup. Stonehenge is very becoming to this young man, especially at sunset. And, dearest, you can hardly imagine the glory of those piled stones as you look back at them, going slowly, slowly away, and seeing them purple-black against a crimson streak of sunset like a smoking torch.
"The policeman explained to me"
We got lost, trying to find the river road, going home, and had great fun, straying into meadows, and onto ploughed ground, which poor Apollo resented. The way was beautiful, past some lovely old houses and exquisite cottages; and the Avon was idyllic in its pretty windings. But the villages of Wiltshire I don't find as poetical as those in Surrey and Sussex or Hampshire.
You would never guess what I'm going to do to-morrow morning? I'm not sure you'd let me, if you knew. But a ward doesn't need a chaperon with a guardian. He plays both parts. I'm to get up early—before the sun is awake—and Sir Lionel is to motor me out to Stonehenge, so that I can see it by sunrise as well as sunset. It is a beautiful idea, and the handsome policeman has promised to be there and let us in.
Seeing a sunrise is like a glorified Private View, I think. I expect to feel as Louis of Bavaria must have felt when he had a Wagner opera all to himself.
Now I am going down to post this, so that it can leave for London by the last train, and start for Switzerland in the morning—of my birthday. I shall count the sunrise a birthday present from heaven if it's fine; and if it isn't I shall know, what I suspect already, that I don't deserve one.
Your loving Changeling,
Audrie.