time. They were
large, black leather cases, containing a silver helmet, shield, and
sword, of antique Roman pattern and beautiful workmanship--a public
tribute bestowed upon my uncle, and left by him to my father; they have
since become an ornamental trophy in my sister's house. They were then
about to be sent for safe keeping to Coutts's bank, and in the meantime
lay close to the desk that had been rifled of a more portable but far
less valuable booty.

Upon my uncle John's death his widow had returned to England, and fixed
her residence at a charming place called Heath Farm, in Hertfordshire.
Lord Essex had been an attached friend of my uncle's, and offered this
home on his property to Mrs. Kemble when she came to England, after her
long sojourn abroad with my uncle, who, as I have mentioned, spent the
last years of his life, and died, at Lausanne. Mrs. Kemble invited my
mother to come and see her soon after she settled in Hertfordshire, and
I accompanied her thither. Cashiobury Park thus became familiar ground
to me, and remains endeared to my recollection for its own beauty, for
the delightful days I passed rambling about it, and for the beginning of
that love bestowed upon my whole life by H---- S----. Heath Farm was a
pretty house, at once rural, comfortable, and elegant, with a fine
farm-yard adjoining it, a sort of cross between a farm and a manor
house; it was on the edge of the Cashiobury estate, within which it
stood, looking on one side over its lawn and flower-garden to the grassy
slopes and fine trees of the park, and on the other, across a road which
divided the two properties, to Lord Clarendon's place, the Grove. It had
been the residence of Lady Monson before her (second) marriage to Lord
Warwick. Close to it was a pretty cottage, also in the park, where lived
an old Miss M----, often visited by a young kinswoman of hers, who
became another of my life-long friends. T---- B----, Miss M----'s niece,
was then a beautiful young woman, whose singularly fine face and sweet
and spirited expression bore a strong resemblance to two eminently
handsome people, my father and Mademoiselle Mars. She and I soon became
intimate companions, though she was several years my senior. We used to
take long rambles together, and vaguely among my indistinct
recollections of her aunt's cottage and the pretty woodland round it,
mix sundry flying visions of a light, youthful figure, that of Lord
M----, then hardly more than a la