the wishes I had formed when I left home,
and I half feared my ride out with Mr. Pollingray. That was before I had
received Charles's letter, letting me know the object of my invitation
here. I require at times a morbid pride to keep me up to the work.
I suppose I rode befittingly, for Mr. Pollingray praised my seat on
horseback. I know I can ride, or feel the 'blast of a horse like my
own'--as he calls it. Yet he never could have had a duller companion.
My conversation was all yes and no, as if it went on a pair of crutches
like a miserable cripple. I was humiliated and vexed. All the while I
was trying to lead up to the French lady, and I could not commence with
a single question. He appears to, have really cancelled the past in
every respect save his calling me his goddaughter. His talk was of the
English poor, and vegetation, and papa's goodness to his old dames in
Ickleworth parish, and defects in my education acknowledged by me, but
not likely to restore me in my depressed state. The ride was beautiful.
We went the length of a twelve-mile ridge between Ickleworth and
Hillford, over high commons, with immense views on both sides, and
through beech-woods, oakwoods, and furzy dells and downs spotted with
juniper and yewtrees--old picnic haunts of mine, but Mr. Pollingray's
fresh delight in the landscape made them seem new and strange. Home
through the valley.

The next day Miss Pollingray joined us, wearing a feutre gris and green
plume, which looked exceedingly odd until you became accustomed to it.
Her hair has decided gray streaks, and that, and the Queen Elizabeth
nose, and the feutre gris!--but she is so kind, I could not even smile
in my heart. It is singular that Mr. Pollingray, who's but three years
her junior, should look at least twenty years younger--at the very
least. His moustache and beard are of the colour of a corn sheaf, and
his blue eyes shining over them remind me of summer. That describes him.
He is summer, and has not fallen into his autumn yet. Miss Pollingray
helped me to talk a little. She tried to check her brother's enthusiasm
for our scenery, and extolled the French paysage. He laughed at her, for
when they were in France it was she who used to say, 'There is nothing
here like England!' Miss Fool rode between them attentive to the
jingling of the bells in her cap: 'Yes' and 'No' at anybody's command,
in and out of season.

Thank you, Charles, for your letter! I was beginning to think my