e bad things because I deserve worse. I am flighty,
I believe I am heartless. Charles is away, and I suffer no pangs. The
truth is, I fancied myself so exceedingly penetrating, and it was my
vanity looking in a glass. I saw something that answered to my nods and
howd'ye-do's and--but I am ashamed, and so penitent I might begin making
a collection of beetles. I cannot lift up my head.

Mr. Pollingray is such a different man from the one I had imagined! What
that one was, I have now quite forgotten. I remember too clearly what
the wretched guesser was. I have been three weeks at Dayton, and if
my sisters know me when I return to the vicarage, they are not foolish
virgins. For my part, I know that I shall always hate Mrs. Romer
Pattlecombe, and that I am unjust to the good woman, but I do hate her,
and I think the stories shocking, and wonder intensely what it was that
I could have found in them to laugh at. I shall never laugh again for
many years. Perhaps, when I am an old woman, I may. I wish the time had
come. All young people seem to me so helplessly silly. I am one of them
for the present, and have no hope that I can appear to be anything else.
The young are a crowd--a shoal of small fry. Their elders are the select
of the world.

On the morning of the day when I was to leave home for Dayton, a
distance of eight miles, I looked out of my window while dressing--as
early as halfpast seven--and I saw Mr. Pollingray's groom on horseback,
leading up and down the walk a darling little, round, plump, black cob
that made my heart leap with an immense bound of longing to be on it and
away across the downs. And then the maid came to my door with a letter:

'Mr. Pollingray, in return for her considerate good behaviour and
saving of trouble to him officially, begs his goddaughter to accept
the accompanying little animal: height 14 h., age 31 years; hunts, is
sure-footed, and likely to be the best jumper in the county.'

I flew downstairs. I rushed out of the house and up to my treasure, and
kissed his nose and stroked his mane. I could not get my fingers away
from him. Horses are so like the very best and beautifullest of women
when you caress them. They show their pleasure so at being petted. They
curve their necks, and paw, and look proud. They take your flattery
like sunshine and are lovely in it. I kissed my beauty, peering at his
black-mottled skin, which is like Allingborough Heath in the twilight.
The smell of his new