"Shall we walk or ride to-day?" said Emily. "We are your attendant knights," answered Frederick, "and wait your decision." "Oh, oh!" quoth I, "Sir Charles Grandison upon our hands:" I did not, however, say so _aloud_; I thought it better to feel my way a little, and only replied, "Certainly."--Emily, with perfect ease, rejoined, that she thought we might perhaps do both, and, turning to her brother, added, "Suppose that we take him first through the Glen, then round the coppice to Lisfarne Wood; and after luncheon, if Arthur is not tired, we may ride up the mountain, and shew him the bay." Matters were arranged in a moment, and forth we sallied, Frederick presenting one arm to his sister and the other to me. "Pooh! what a piece of ceremony you are," said I. "How so?" eagerly asked Emily; "Fred. is so affectionate, that he _cannot_ be formal: his heart always serves with him in the place of etiquette, by suggesting all that the most genuine politeness could dictate: his attentions are not confined to strangers; but, unlike those of cold mannerists, are bestowed upon the people whom he loves best." This savoured of a _sting_, and I felt my colour rising; but in a second I found that none could have been designed; indeed, how should it, for they knew nothing of my conduct with my sisters, and therefore could never have intended a stab in the dark. "Plague on these _retirements_," thought I to myself, "where there is no standard for good manners but people's own crude notions of what is right and wrong! This ponderous machinery of morals, brought to bear upon every trifle, is as difficult to be at ease with, as the heavy cross-stitch, long-backed chairs of antiquity which are just suited to such _buckram_, and it is a pity that the furniture at Glenalta is not in _keeping_ with these straight-laced puritans who are its inhabitants."--Thoughts are rapid, and these flew over my mind so fleetly as not to be fashioned into any sort of utterable form, when the gay cheerfulness of my companions dispelled the passing cloud, and we took a delightful walk, which was enlivened by a great deal of pleasant conversation. We talked of Killarney, which they tell me I must visit when I cease to _bark_. We planned some boating parties, which, by the bye, will be just the thing, and kill two birds with one stone; for the physicians, my mother tells me in her last letter, desire me to go upon the water, and as I like it excessively I shall have the credit of being a very docile patient. They tell me that there are some curious remnants of antiquity, which I am to see; and, in short, we cut out work enough to occupy some time, which, if I can spin out in this back settlement of mankind, _tant mieux_.