Milly and I were horribly confounded, but Cousin Monica was resolved to place us all upon the least formal terms possible, and I believe she had set about it in the right way.

’And now, girls, I am going to make a counter-discovery, which, I fear, a little conflicts with yours.  This Mr. Carysbroke is Lord Ilbury, brother of this Lady Mary; and it is all my fault for not having done my honours better; but you see what clever match-making little creatures they are.’

’You can’t think how flattered I am at being made the subject of a theory, even a mistaken one, by Miss Ruthyn.’

And so, after our modest fit was over, Milly and I were very merry, like the rest, and we all grew a great deal more intimate that morning.

I think altogether those were the pleasantest and happiest days of my life:  gay, intelligent, and kindly society at home; charming excursions—­sometimes riding—­sometimes by carriage—­to distant points of beauty in the county.  Evenings varied with music, reading, and spirited conversation.  Now and then a visitor for a day or two, and constantly some neighbour from the town, or its dependencies, dropt in.  Of these I but remember tall old Miss Wintletop, most entertaining of rustic old maids, with her nice lace and thick satin, and her small, kindly round face—­pretty, I dare say, in other days, and now frosty, but kindly—­who told us such delightful old stories of the county in her father’s and grandfather’s time; who knew the lineage of every family in it, and could recount all its duels and elopements; give us illustrative snatches from old election squibs, and lines from epitaphs, and tell exactly where all the old-world highway robberies had been committed:  how it fared with the chief delinquents after the assizes; and, above all, where, and of what sort, the goblins and elves of the county had made themselves seen, from the phantom post-boy, who every third night crossed Windale Moor, by the old coach-road, to the fat old ghost, in mulberry velvet, who showed his great face, crutch, and ruffles, by moonlight, at the bow window of the old court-house that was taken down in 1803.

You cannot imagine what agreeable evenings we passed in this society, or how rapidly my good Cousin Milly improved in it.  I remember well the intense suspense in which she and I awaited the answer from Bartram-Haugh to kind Cousin Monica’s application for an extension of our leave of absence.

It came, and with it a note from Uncle Silas, which was curious, and, therefore, is printed here:—­

’MY DEAR LADY KNOLLYS,—­To your kind letter I say yes (that is, for another week, not a fortnight), with all my heart.  I am glad to hear that my starlings chatter so pleasantly; at all events the refrain is not that of Sterne’s.  They can get out; and do get out; and shall get out as much as they please.  I am no gaoler, and shut up nobody but myself.  I have always thought that young