"dressing-room;" but he was going
to the wrong door, and had to turn back, though he took care not to
let me see his face again.

I can't make John out. At dinner he was just as if nothing had
happened; but at all events I'm glad I've refused Mr. Haycock; so I
shall read Frank's note over once more and then go to bed.

CHAPTER XIV.

I need quote no more from my diary, as the next few days offered no
incident worthy of recording to break the monotony of our life at
Dangerfield Hall. Drearier than ever it was, and more especially to
me; for I felt that, although undeclared, there was "war to the knife"
between myself, my aunt, and cousin. The latter scarcely spoke to me
at all; and my aunt, whose defeat was rankling bitterly in her heart,
merely took such sullen notice of me as was absolutely necessitated by
the laws of hospitality and the usages of society. Poor Aunt Deborah
required to be kept very quiet and free from all worries and
annoyances. "The more she slept," the doctor said, "the sooner she
would get well enough to move to London for further advice;" so I had
not even her to talk to--there was no hunting--the frost got harder
and harder--that obstinate weather-cock over the stables kept veering
from north to north-east--the grooms went to exercise wrapped up in
greatcoats and shawl handkerchiefs, and stayed out as short a time as
was compatible with the mildest stable discipline; there would be no
change of the moon for a week, and it was obvious that I should have
but little use for Brilliant and White Stockings before our return to
town.

Oh! the hopelessness of a real bitter black frost coming on early in
the season, especially when you are not at your own home and your time
is limited; to get up morning after morning with the faint hope that
the change may have come at last; to see the dry slates and the clear
horizon and the iron-bound earth, and to ascertain in your own proper
person that the water gets colder and colder every day. You puzzle
over the almanac till your eyes ache, and study the thermometer till
you get a crick in your neck. You watch the smoke from every farmhouse
and cottage within your ken, and still, after curling high up into the
pure, rarefied atmosphere, it floats hopelessly away to the southward
and corroborates the odious dog-vane that you fondly imagined might
have got stuck in its northerly direction. You walk out and ask every
labourer you meet whether he "does not