found nobody
there to receive her--though a pony-carriage was waiting outside. In two
minutes she saw a melancholy man in cheerful livery running towards her
from a public-house close adjoining, who proved to be the servant sent
to fetch her. There are two ways of getting rid of sorrows: one by
living them down, the other by drowning them. The coachman drowned his.

He informed her that her luggage would be fetched by a spring-waggon in
about half-an-hour; then helped her into the chaise and drove off.

Her lover's letter, lying close against her neck, fortified her against
the restless timidity she had previously felt concerning this new
undertaking, and completely furnished her with the confident ease of
mind which is required for the critical observation of surrounding
objects. It was just that stage in the slow decline of the summer days,
when the deep, dark, and vacuous hot-weather shadows are beginning to be
replaced by blue ones that have a surface and substance to the eye. They
trotted along the turnpike road for a distance of about a mile, which
brought them just outside the village of Carriford, and then turned
through large lodge-gates, on the heavy stone piers of which stood a
pair of bitterns cast in bronze. They then entered the park and wound
along a drive shaded by old and drooping lime-trees, not arranged in the
form of an avenue, but standing irregularly, sometimes leaving the track
completely exposed to the sky, at other times casting a shade over it,
which almost approached gloom--the under surface of the lowest boughs
hanging at a uniform level of six feet above the grass--the extreme
height to which the nibbling mouths of the cattle could reach.

'Is that the house?' said Cytherea expectantly, catching sight of a grey
gable between the trees, and losing it again.

'No; that's the old manor-house--or rather all that's left of it. The
Aldycliffes used to let it sometimes, but it was oftener empty. 'Tis
now divided into three cottages. Respectable people didn't care to live
there.'

'Why didn't they?'

'Well, 'tis so awkward and unhandy. You see so much of it has been
pulled down, and the rooms that are left won't do very well for a small
residence. 'Tis so dismal, too, and like most old houses stands too low
down in the hollow to be healthy.'

'Do they tell any horrid stories about it?'

'No, not a single one.'

'Ah, that's a pity.'

'Yes, that's what I say. 'Tis jest the house for a nic