Continued to like Woburn better and better.  Some people went and others came, among the last, Lord Melbourne.  Lord Melbourne did not, I thought, appear to advantage; he showed little wish for conversation with anybody, but seemed trying to banish the thoughts of his reverse by talking nonsense with some of the ladies.

The elections which followed the defeat of the Melbourne Ministry gave the Tories a majority of over eighty seats.  Peel was joined by Lord Ripon, Lord Stanley, and others, who had supported Lord Grey during the Reform Bill.  The Whig Party were in a discomfited condition.  They did not look back on their past term of office with much satisfaction; they had been constantly in a minority; and although such useful measures as Rowland Hill’s Penny Postage had been carried, nothing had been done to meet the most urgent needs of the time.

The Duke of Bedford had placed Endsleigh at Lord John’s disposal, and next month he travelled down with Lady John to Devonshire.  Endsleigh is one of the most beautiful places in Devonshire; it is near the little town of Tavistock, where Drake was born.  The house looks down from a height on the lovely wooded slopes of the River Tamar.  In letters to his brother Lord John had said of Endsleigh, “It is the place I am most fond of in the world.”  “I think no place so beautiful for walks and drives.”  He and Lady John always retained the happiest memories of their life there.

    ENDSLEIGH, October 22, 1841

Long delightful shooting walk with Lord John—­delightful although so many songs, poems, and sentiments of my greatest favourites against shooting were running in my head to strengthen the horror that I and all women must have of it.

      “Inhuman man—­curse on thy barbarous art.”

    Inhuman woman to countenance his barbarity!

    ENDSLEIGH, October 26, 1841

Such a day!  White frost in the morning, sparkling in the brightest sun, which shone all day.  The trees looking redder and yellower from the deep blue sky beyond—­the different distances of the hills so marked—­the river shining like silver.  Oh, what a day!  We were prepared for it by the beauty of last night—­such that I could scarcely bring myself to shut my window and go to bed.  A snow-white mist over all except the garden below my eyes and the tops of the hills beyond, and a bright moon “tipping with silver every mountain head.”

    ENDSLEIGH, November 11, 1841

With Lord John to hear an examination of the School at Milton Abbot.  He gave prizes and made a little speech in praise of master and boys, which made him and, I think, me more nervous than any of the speeches I have heard from him in the House of Commons.  I do not know why it should have been affecting, but it was so....  Walk with him in the dusk—­his kindness, his tenderness are the joy of my life.

Her marriage had brought her greater happiness than she had thought possible.  Writing to her mother from Endsleigh on November 15th, she says: