So the season being over, behold us again in the country!
After our visit to Carsbrook, mamma and papa were going to Haitly Abbey. For some reason, possibly the very simple one that I had been forgotten in the invitation, I was not to accompany them; I was despatched in charge of old Lady Hester Wigmore, who was going that way, to Chester, where Miss Pounden took me up; and with her, "to my great content," as old Samuel Pepys says, I went to Malory, which I always re-visited with an unutterable affection, as my only true home.
Nothing happened during my stay at Malory, which was unexpectedly interrupted by a note from mamma appointing to meet me at Chester. Papa had been obliged to go to town to consult with some friends, and he was then to go down to Shillingsworth to speak at a public dinner. She and I were going northward. She would tell me all when we met. I need not bring any of my finery with me.
With this scanty information, and some curiosity as to our destination in the North, I arrived at Chester, and there met mamma, from whom I soon learned that our excursion was to lead us into wild and beautiful scenery quite new to me.
