So here we are, all lodging together in an ideal English farmhouse. There is a thatched roof on one of the old buildings, and the dairy-house is covered with ivy, and Farmer Hendry’s wife makes a real English curtsey, and there are herds of beautiful sleek Durham cattle, and the butter and cream and eggs and mutton are delicious, and I never, never want to go home any more. I want to live here for ever and wave the American flag on Washington’s birthday.
I am so happy that I feel as if something were going to spoil it all. Twenty years old to-day! I wish mamma were alive to wish me many happy returns.
The cathedral is very beautiful in itself, and its situation is beyond all words of mine to describe. I greatly admired the pulpit, which is supported by five pillars [p83] sunk into the backs of squashed lions; but Mr. Copley, when I asked him the period, said, ‘Pure Brummagem!’
There is a nice old cell for refractory monks, that we agreed will be a lovely place for Mrs. Benedict if we can lose her in it. She arrives as soon as they can find room for her at the Three Tuns.
Memoranda:—Casual remark for breakfast-table or perhaps for luncheon—it is a trifle heavy for breakfast: ‘Since the sixteenth century, and despite the work of Inigo Jones and the great Wren (not Jenny Wren: Christopher), architecture has had, in England especially, no legitimate development.’ This is the only cathedral with a Bishop’s Throne or a Sanctuary Knocker.
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[p84]
He
Durham, July 19.
O child of fortune, thy name is J. Q. Copley! How did it happen to be election time? Why did the inns chance to be full? How did Aunt Celia relax sufficiently to allow me to find her a lodging? Why did she fall in love with the lodging when found? I do not know. I only know Fate smiles; that Kitty and I eat our morning bacon and eggs together; that I carve Kitty’s cold beef and pour Kitty’s sparkling ale at luncheon; that I go to matins with Kitty, and dine with Kitty, and walk in the gloaming with Kitty—and Aunt Celia. And after a day of heaven like this, like Lorna Doone’s lover—ay, and like every other lover, I suppose—I go to sleep, and the roof above me swarms with angels, having Kitty under it.
[p85]
She was so beautiful on Sunday. She has been wearing her favourite browns and primroses through the week, but on Sunday she blossomed into blue and white, topped by a wonderful hat, whose brim was laden with hyacinths. She sat on the end of a seat in the nave, and there was a capped and gowned crowd of university students in the transept. I watched them and they watched her. She has the fullest, whitest eyelids, and the loveliest lashes. When she looks down I wish she might never look up, and when she looks up I am never ready for her to look down. If it had been a secular occasion, and she had dropped her handkerchief, seven-eighths of the students would have started to pick it up—but I should have got there first! Well, all this is but a useless prelude, for there are facts to be considered—delightful, warm, breathing facts!