ughter--or rather, if it pleases
you, for I trust your daughter has been too well brought up to have a
will in opposition to yours--let me know, dear cousin Margaret Dawson,
and I will make arrangements for meeting the young gentlewoman at
Cavistock, which is the nearest point to which the coach will bring her.'

My mother dropped the letter, and sat silent.

"I shall not know what to do without you, Margaret."

A moment before, like a young untried girl as I was, I had been pleased
at the notion of seeing a new place, and leading a new life. But now,--my
mother's look of sorrow, and the children's cry of remonstrance: "Mother;
I won't go," I said.

"Nay! but you had better," replied she, shaking her head. "Lady Ludlow
has much power. She can help your brothers. It will not do to slight
her offer."

So we accepted it, after much consultation. We were rewarded,--or so we
thought,--for, afterwards, when I came to know Lady Ludlow, I saw that
she would have done her duty by us, as helpless relations, however we
might have rejected her kindness,--by a presentation to Christ's Hospital
for one of my brothers.

And this was how I came to know my Lady Ludlow.

I remember well the afternoon of my arrival at Hanbury Court. Her
ladyship had sent to meet me at the nearest post-town at which the mail-
coach stopped. There was an old groom inquiring for me, the ostler said,
if my name was Dawson--from Hanbury Court, he believed. I felt it rather
formidable; and first began to understand what was meant by going among
strangers, when I lost sight of the guard to whom my mother had intrusted
me. I was perched up in a high gig with a hood to it, such as in those
days was called a chair, and my companion was driving deliberately
through the most pastoral country I had ever yet seen. By-and-by we
ascended a long hill, and the man got out and walked at the horse's head.
I should have liked to walk, too, very much indeed; but I did not know
how far I might do it; and, in fact, I dared not speak to ask to be
helped down the deep steps of the gig. We were at last at the top,--on a
long, breezy, sweeping, unenclosed piece of ground, called, as I
afterwards learnt, a Chase. The groom stopped, breathed, patted his
horse, and then mounted again to my side.

"Are we near Hanbury Court?" I asked.

"Near! Why, Miss! we've a matter of ten mile yet to go."

Once launched into conversation, we went on pretty glibly. I fancy he