.

So the morning came--my last for many a day at Knowl--a day of partings, a
day of novelty and regrets. The travelling carriage and post horses were
at the door. Cousin Monica's carriage had just carried her away to the
railway. We had embraced with tears; and her kind face was still before me,
and her words of comfort and promise in my ears. The early sharpness
of morning was still in the air; the frosty dew still glistened on the
window-panes. We had made a hasty breakfast, my share of which was a single
cup of tea. The aspect of the house how strange! Uncarpeted, uninhabited,
doors for the most part locked, all the servants but Mrs. Rusk and Branston
departed. The drawing-room door stood open, and a charwoman was washing the
bare floor. I was looking my last--for who could say how long?--on the old
house, and lingered. The luggage was all up. I made Mary Quince get in
first, for every delay was precious; and now the moment was come. I hugged
and kissed Mrs. Rusk in the hall.

'God bless you, Miss Maud, darling. You must not fret; mind, the time won't
be long going over--_no_ time at all; and you'll be bringing back a fine
young gentleman--who knows? as great as the Duke of Wellington, for your
husband; and I'll take the best of care of everything, and the birds and
the dogs, till you come back; and I'll go and see you and Mary, if you'll
allow, in Derbyshire;' and so forth.

I got into the carriage, and bid Branston, who shut the door, good-bye,
and kissed hands to Mrs. Rusk, who was smiling and drying her eyes and
courtesying on the hall-door steps. The dogs, who had started gleefully
with the carriage, were called back by Branston, and driven home, wondering
and wistful, looking back with ears oddly cocked and tails dejected. My
heart thanked them for their kindness, and I felt like a stranger, and very
desolate.

It was a bright, clear morning. It had been settled that it was not
worth the trouble changing from the carriage to the railway for sake of
five-and-twenty miles, and so the entire journey of sixty miles was to be
made by the post road--the pleasantest travelling, if the mind were free.
The grander and more distant features of the landscape we may see well
enough from the window of the railway-carriage; but it is the foreground
that interests and instructs us, like a pleasant gossiping history; and
_that_ we had, in old days, from the post-chaise window. It was more
than travelling picquet. Something