Dear Mamma,—­Oh! what a long day this has been!  But I always get so muddled if I don’t go straight on, that I had better finish telling you about Friday first.  Well, while Adeline and I were bicycling, she told me she thought I should grow quite pretty if only my hair was arranged more like hers—­she has a jug-handle chignon—­and if I had less of that French look.  But she supposed I could not help it, having had to spend so much time abroad.  She said I should find life was full of temptations, if I had not an anchor.  I asked her what that was, and she said it was something on which to cast one’s soul.  I don’t see how that could be an anchor—­do you, Mamma? because it is the anchor that gets cast, isn’t it?  However, she assured me that it was, so I asked her if she had one herself, and she said she had, and it was her great reverence for Mr. Trench, and they were secretly engaged! and she hoped I would not mention it to anybody; and presently, when he joined us, would I mind riding on, as she had so few chances to talk to him?  That she would not for the world deceive her mother, but there were mysteries connected with her religion which Lady Carriston could not understand, being only Low Church.  But when they saw a prospect of getting married they would tell her about it; if they did it now, she would persuade the Duke not to give Mr. Trench the Bellestoke living, which he has half promised him, and so make it impossible for them to marry.

I asked her if Mr. Trench was Miss Garnons’ anchor too? and she seemed quite annoyed, so I suppose their religion has heaps of different mysteries; but I don’t see what all that has got to do with telling her mother, do you?  And I should rather turn Low Church than have to kiss Mr. Trench, anyway.  He came from a side path and joined us, and as soon as I could I left them; but they picked me up again by the inner gate, just as I was going in to lunch, after having had a beautiful ride.  The Park is magnificent.

[Sidenote:  Putting on the Clock]

At lunch I sat by the old Earl.  He said my hair was a sunbeam’s home, and that my nose was fit for a cameo; he is perfectly charming.  Afterwards we went en bloc to the library, and the Garnons began to knit again.  Nobody says a word about clothes; they talked about the Girls’ Friendly Society, and the Idiot Asylum, and the Flannel Union, and Higher Education, and whenever Lady Garnons mentions any one that Lady Carriston does not know all about, she always says, “Oh! and who was she?” And then, after thoroughly sifting it, if she finds that the person in question does not belong to any of the branches of the family that she is acquainted with, she says “Society is getting very mixed now.”  Presently about six more people arrived.  There seems to be nothing but these ghastly three o’clock trains here.  All the new lot were affected by it, just as I was.  There were endless pauses.