"Ah! You make the most of it, I know," cried Louisa, "but if it were

really so, I should do just the same in her place. If I loved a man,

as she loves the Admiral, I would always be with him, nothing should

ever separate us, and I would rather be overturned by him, than driven

safely by anybody else."

It was spoken with enthusiasm.

"Had you?" cried he, catching the same tone; "I honour you!" And there

was silence between them for a little while.

Anne could not immediately fall into a quotation again. The sweet

scenes of autumn were for a while put by, unless some tender sonnet,

fraught with the apt analogy of the declining year, with declining

happiness, and the images of youth and hope, and spring, all gone

together, blessed her memory. She roused herself to say, as they

struck by order into another path, "Is not this one of the ways to

Winthrop?" But nobody heard, or, at least, nobody answered her.

Winthrop, however, or its environs--for young men are, sometimes to be

met with, strolling about near home--was their destination; and after

another half mile of gradual ascent through large enclosures, where the

ploughs at work, and the fresh made path spoke the farmer counteracting

the sweets of poetical despondence, and meaning to have spring again,

they gained the summit of the most considerable hill, which parted

Uppercross and Winthrop, and soon commanded a full view of the latter,

at the foot of the hill on the other side.

Winthrop, without beauty and without dignity, was stretched before them

an indifferent house, standing low, and hemmed in by the barns and

buildings of a farm-yard.

Mary exclaimed, "Bless me! here is Winthrop. I declare I had no idea!

Well now, I think we had better turn back; I am excessively tired."

Henrietta, conscious and ashamed, and seeing no cousin Charles walking

along any path, or leaning against any gate, was ready to do as Mary

wished; but "No!" said Charles Musgrove, and "No, no!" cried Louisa

more eagerly, and taking her sister aside, seemed to be arguing the

matter warmly.

Charles, in the meanwhile, was very decidedly declaring his resolution

of calling on his aunt, now that he was so near; and very evidently,

though more fearfully, trying to induce his wife to go too. But this

was one of the points on which the lady shewed her strength; and when

he recommended the advantage of resting herself a quarter of an hour at

Winthrop, as she felt so tired, she resolutely answered, "Oh! no,

indeed! walking up that hill again would do her more harm than any

sitting down could do her good;" and, in short, her look and manner

declared, that go she would not.




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