I remember looking at Anna consideringly when I was told this was to be, for, as children do, I had hitherto merely regarded Anna as a sister too "grown-up" to play with on equal terms, and yet not as a person sufficiently interesting to be married to one of the magnificent beings who, like Evelyn's friends, wore such beautiful uniforms and jingly spurs. But my sister had soft brown hair and a lovely skin, blue eyes that were mocking, gay, or tender in response to many moods, and a very pretty figure. And I solemnly decided that she was really pretty, and quite "grown-up" enough to be loved by the "beautiful ones." Anthony Trollope was a great friend of my father and mother, and used to stay with us a good deal for hunting. He was a very hard rider to hounds, and was a cause of great anxiety to my mother, for my sister Anna loved an intrepid "lead" out hunting, and delighted in following Trollope, who stuck at nothing. I used to rejoice in his "The Small House at Allington," and go about fitting the characters in the book to the people about {9} me--a mode of amusement that palled considerably on the victims. I was always glad when our young cousin George (afterwards Sir George) Farwell (Lord Justice Farwell) came to see us. A dear lad, who quite won my childish admiration with his courtly manners and kind, considerate ways. The Hon. Grantley-Barkley (who was seventy, I believe) was a dear old man who was very fond of me--as I was of him. I was but a child when he informed my parents that he wished to marry me when I was old enough! He was a dear friend of my father's, but, though the latter would not consider the matter seriously, my mother, who was an extraordinarily sympathetic woman, encouraged the idea. Grantley-Barkley was always called the "Deer-slayer" by his friends. A fine old sportsman, his house, "The Hut," at Poole, Dorset, was a veritable museum of slain beasts, and I used to shudder secretly at the idea of becoming mistress of so many heads and horns. The dear old man used to write long letters to me before I could answer them in anything but laborious print, and he wrote sheets to my mother inquiring of my welfare and the direction of my education. I still have many of the verses he composed in my honour, and though the last line of the verse that I insert worries me now as much as it did when I received it, so many years ago, I still think it very pretty sentiment: "Then the Bird that above me is singing Shall chase the thought that is drear, When the soul to _her_ side it is winging The limbs _must_ be lingering near!" This little one-sided romance died a natural death as {10} I grew up, my old friend continuing to take the kindest interest in me, but accepting the fact that I was no exception to the law of youth that calls to youth in mating.