The place we went to live at had a good house, commanding a splendid view; an excellent garden; three fish-ponds, and about thirty acres of grass land, which enabled us to keep cows and horses, without troubling us with any of the laborious duties of cultivating arable land.
At first I was enchanted with the change. I was never tired of feeding my poultry, watching the dairy-maid, and managing the fruit and flowers; but, alas! I soon found that there are few roses without thorns. My first trouble was three gentlemen calling on us one day unexpectedly, and my father asking them to stay dinner. We were seven miles from the town where we had formerly lived; and, though there was a small town within two miles of us, the road was bad, and the miles very long ones; while the town itself, when we reached it, was one of those provoking places the shopkeepers of which never have what is wanted, though they always say they had abundance of the required article the week before, and believe they shall have it again the week after. I need not enter into the details of my troubles in preparing for this well-remembered dinner. Meat was out of the question; and though I was enabled, with infinite difficulty, to give my father's friends enough to eat, no one but a young housekeeper in a similar situation can have any idea of what I suffered. The lesson, however, was not lost upon me; and you may easily imagine that ever afterwards I took care to have a cooked piece of hung beef, or ham, or some similar substantial article of food in the house, that I might be provided for a similar occurrence.
The recollection of what I underwent while buying my experience makes me anxious to spare you, my dear Annie, the pain of a similar ordeal; particularly as it is more disagreeable for a young newly married woman to feel in housekeeping difficulties than a single one; as it makes you fear your husband had a higher opinion of you than you deserve. In your situation the difficulty is increased by your husband not having lived at the Manor-House since the death of his parents, when he was only ten years old; so that he can have no idea of the petty troubles you will be exposed to. Under these circumstances I will do my best to clear the path that lies before you, and to teach you how to enjoy rationally a country life.
The Manor-House in its original State.