which
I had never read; but my mother did not sleep, so we chatted
instead of my reading. She recalled all our former times at
Weybridge. It was a great pleasure to retrace this well-known road,
and again to see dear old Walton Bridge and the bright, broad
Thames, with the noble chestnut trees on its banks, the smooth,
smiling fields stretching beyond it, and the swans riding in such
happy majesty on its bosom. I really think I do deserve to live in
the country, it is so _delightsome_ to me. We reached Oatlands an
hour before dinner-time and found the party just returned from
riding. We sauntered through part of the grounds to the cemetery of
the Duchess of York's dogs.... We had some music in the evening.
Lady Francis sang and I sang, and was frightened to death, as I
always am when asked to do so....

_Thursday, 19th._--A bright sunny morning, the trees all bowing and
bending, and the water chafing and crisping under a fresh, strong,
but not cold, wind. I lost my way in the park and walked toward
Walton, thinking I was going to Weybridge, but, discovering my
mistake, turned about, and crossing the whole park came out upon
the common and our old familiar cricketing ground. I flew along the
dear old paths to our little cottage, but "Desolate was the
dwelling of Morna"--the house closed, the vine torn down, the grass
knee-deep, the shrubs all trailing their branches and blossoms in
disorderly luxuriance on the earth, the wire fence broken down
between the garden and the wood, the gate gone; the lawn was sown
with wheat, and the little pine wood one tangled maze, without
path, entrance, or issue. I ran up the mound to where John used to
stand challenging the echo with his bugle....

O tempo passato!--the absent may return and the distant be brought
near, the dead be raised and in another world rejoin us, but a day
that is gone is gone, and all eternity can give us back no single
minute of the past! I gathered a rose and some honeysuckle from the
poor disheveled shrubs for my mother, and ran back to Oatlands to
breakfast. After breakfast we went over "Hernani," with Mrs.
Sullivan for prompter, and when that was over everybody went out
walking; but I was too tired with my morning's tramp, and sat under
a tree on the lawn reading a very good litt