"Ah! You make the most of it, I know," cried Louisa, "but if it were
really so, I should do just the same in her place. If I loved a man,
as she loves the Admiral, I would always be with him, nothing should
ever separate us, and I would rather be overturned by him, than driven
safely by anybody else."
It was spoken with enthusiasm.
"Had you?" cried he, catching the same tone; "I honour you!" And there
was silence between them for a little while.
Anne could not immediately fall into a quotation again. The sweet
scenes of autumn were for a while put by, unless some tender sonnet,
fraught with the apt analogy of the declining year, with declining
happiness, and the images of youth and hope, and spring, all gone
together, blessed her memory. She roused herself to say, as they
struck by order into another path, "Is not this one of the ways to
Winthrop?" But nobody heard, or, at least, nobody answered her.
Winthrop, however, or its environs--for young men are, sometimes to be
met with, strolling about near home--was their destination; and after
another half mile of gradual ascent through large enclosures, where the
ploughs at work, and the fresh made path spoke the farmer counteracting
the sweets of poetical despondence, and meaning to have spring again,
they gained the summit of the most considerable hill, which parted
Uppercross and Winthrop, and soon commanded a full view of the latter,
at the foot of the hill on the other side.
Winthrop, without beauty and without dignity, was stretched before them
an indifferent house, standing low, and hemmed in by the barns and
buildings of a farm-yard.
Mary exclaimed, "Bless me! here is Winthrop. I declare I had no idea!
Well now, I think we had better turn back; I am excessively tired."
Henrietta, conscious and ashamed, and seeing no cousin Charles walking
along any path, or leaning against any gate, was ready to do as Mary
wished; but "No!" said Charles Musgrove, and "No, no!" cried Louisa
more eagerly, and taking her sister aside, seemed to be arguing the
matter warmly.
Charles, in the meanwhile, was very decidedly declaring his resolution
of calling on his aunt, now that he was so near; and very evidently,
though more fearfully, trying to induce his wife to go too. But this
was one of the points on which the lady shewed her strength; and when
he recommended the advantage of resting herself a quarter of an hour at
Winthrop, as she felt so tired, she resolutely answered, "Oh! no,
indeed! walking up that hill again would do her more harm than any
sitting down could do her good;" and, in short, her look and manner
declared, that go she would not.