go on to Great-aunt Maria's by the eleven train. I am glad Cousin
Octavia is going to take me out next season instead of Aunt Mary, which
was first suggested. I know I should not have been good with her. She
is not a bit like you, darling Mamma. I hope you are better; I shan't
see you again until next Saturday, when I leave Heaviland Manor. It is
a long time.--With love from your affectionate daughter, Elizabeth.

HEAVILAND MANOR

Heaviland Manor,

_Wednesday, August 3rd_.

Dearest Mamma,--I can't think why you made me come here! Agnes has been
so sniffy and condescending ever since this morning; but I have
remarked that Uncle John's valet is only about forty and has a roving
eye! so perhaps by to-morrow morning I shan't have my hair screwed off
my head! But I feel for Agnes, only in a different way.

[Sidenote: _A Quiet Evening_]

It is a stuffy, boring place. You remember the house--enormous, tidy,
hideous, uncomfortable. Well, we had _such_ a dinner last night after I
arrived--soup, fish, everything popped on to the table for Great-uncle
John to carve at one end, and Great-aunt Maria at the other! A regular
aquarium specimen of turbot sat on its dish opposite him, while Aunt
Maria had a huge lot of soles. And there wasn't any need, because
there were four men-servants in the room who could easily have done it
at the side; but I remember you said it was always like that when you
were a little girl. Well, it got on to puddings. I forgot to tell you,
though, there were plenty of candles on the table, without shades, and
a "bouquet" of flowers, all sorts (I am sure fixed in sand), in a gold
middle thing. Well, about the puddings--at least four of them were
planted on the table, awfully sweet and jammy, and Uncle John was quite
irritated with me because I could only eat two; and Aunt Maria, who has
got as deaf as a post, kept roaring to old Major Orwell, who sat next
her, "Children have no healthy appetites as in our day. Eh! what?" And
I wanted to scream in reply, "But I am grown up now, Aunt Maria!"

Uncle John asked me every question over and over, and old Lady
Farrington's false teeth jumped so once or twice that I got quite
nervous. That is the party, me, Major Orwell, Lady Farrington, and
Uncle and Aunt.

When dessert was about coming, _everything_ thing got lifted from the
table, and before you could say "Jack Robinson" off whisked the cloth.
I was so unprepared for it that I said "Oh!" and ducked