"She died when your mother was born, my dear," said Tanty, "she was not as old as you are now, and your grandfather never smiled again, or so they said."
That sobered me a little. Yet she lived her life so well, while she did live, that I who have wasted twenty precious years can find in my heart rather to envy than to pity my beautiful grandmother.
November 5th.—It is three o'clock in the morning, but I do not feel at all inclined to go to bed. Madeleine is sleeping, poor pretty pale Madeleine! with the tears hardly dry upon her cheeks and I can hear her sighing in her sleep.
I was right, she is in love, and the gentleman she loves is not approved of by Tanty and the upshot of it all is we are to leave dear Bath, delightful Bath, to-morrow—to-day rather—for some unknown penitential region which our stern relative as yet declines to name. I am longing to hear more about it; but Tanty, who, though she talks so much, can keep her own counsel better than any woman I know, will not give me any further information beyond the facts that the delinquent who has dared to aspire to my sister is a person of the name of Smith, and that it would not do at all.
I have not the heart to wake Madeleine to make her tell me more, though I really ought to pinch her well for being so secretive—besides, my head is so full of my own day that I want to get it all written down, and I shall never have done so unless I begin at the beginning.
Yesterday, then, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon Lord Dereham's coach and four came clattering up to our door to call for me. Mrs. Hambledon was already installed and Lady Soames and a dozen other of the fashionables of Bath. My little Lord Marquis had kept the box seat for me, at which the other ladies, even my dear friend and chaperon, looked rather green. The weather was glorious, and off we went with a flourish of trumpets and whips, and I knew I should enjoy myself monstrously.
And so I did. But it was the drive back that was the best of all. We never started till near nine o'clock, and Lord Dereham insisted on my sitting beside him again—at which all the ladies looked daggers at me and all the gentlemen daggers at him. And then we sang songs and tore along uphill and down dale, under the beautiful moonlight, through the still air, till all at once we found we had lost our way. We had to drive on till we came to an inn and we could make inquiries. There the gentlemen opened another hamper of wine, and when we set off again I promise you they were all pretty lively (and most of the ladies too, for the matter of that). As for me, who never drank anything but milk or water till six months ago, I have not learnt to like wine yet, so, though I sipped out of the glass to keep the fun going, I contrived to dispose of the contents, quietly over the side of the coach, when no one was looking.
It was a drive to remember. We came to a big hill, and as we were going down it at a smart pace the coach began to sway, then the ladies began to screech, and even the men looked so scared that I laughed outright. Lord Dereham was perfectly tipsy and he did not know the road a bit, but he drove in beautiful style and was extraordinarily amusing; as soon as the coach took to swaying, instead of slackening speed as they all begged him, he lashed the horses into a tearing gallop, looking over his shoulder at the rest and cursing them with the greatest energy, grinning with rage, and looking more like a little white rat than ever.
"Give me the whip," said I, "and I shall whip the team while you drive."