r at our door. He saw me too, and took his hat off; and she said
something to him, and they both laughed!

I asked Aunt Deborah to go home, for it was getting late, and the
evening air was not very good for her poor cold. I did not feel well
myself somehow; and when dear aunty told me I looked pale, I was
forced to confess to a slight headache. I am not subject to low
spirits generally--I have no patience with a woman that is--but of
course one is sometimes a "little out of sorts;" and I confess I did
not feel quite up to the mark that evening, I cannot tell why. If John
flatters himself it was because he behaved so brutally in
disappointing me, he is very much mistaken; and as for Captain Lovell,
I am sure he may ride with anybody he likes for what I care. I wonder,
with all his cleverness, he can't see how that woman is only laughing
at him. However, it's no business of mine. So I went into my boudoir,
drank some tea, and then locked myself in and had a "good cry."

CHAPTER VII.

It is wonderful how soon the London season comes to an end; and, in
fact, it is difficult to say when its tide is really at the flood.
Single men--and they are necessary ingredients for gaiety wherever
there are young ladies--single men seldom go to town much before the
Derby. Then comes Ascot, for which meeting they leave the metropolis,
and enjoy some quiet retreat in the neighbourhood of Windsor, taking
with them many potables and what _they_ call a "dog cook." After Ascot
people begin to think about going away, and before you know where you
are three more weeks have elapsed, and it is July. Dear, what a
scatter there is then!--some off to Norway, some to Cowes, some to
Caithness, and some to Galway. Those that remain for Goodwood are sure
to go to Newmarket; and the man who sticks religiously to the
pavement, and resists the allurements of all the above-mentioned
resorts, only does so because he is meditating a trip to California,
Kamtschatka, or the Rocky Mountains, and is so preoccupied with
portable soup, patent saddle-bags, bowie-knives, and revolvers that he
might just as well be at his ultimate destination in person for all
the benefit one gets from his society. I confess I don't like the end
of the season. You keep on trying to be gay, whilst your friends are
dropping off and disappearing one by one. Like the survivor in some
horrid pestilence, you know your time must come too; but you shut your
eyes to the certainty, an