Such a manner must be the result of suppressed feeling, thought Lady Susan; but she remembered the coffee: yet, might not even that, she asked herself, be one of the strange inconsistencies of love. Her spirits began to rise; and her good humour, never long absent, returned. She introduced sentimental subjects, and frequently spoke in so low a tone, that Edmund was obliged to stoop towards her to gather the meaning of what she said; so that to those who walked behind them, they appeared to be engaged in very earnest, and very interesting conversation. They turned off into a narrower walk; and the next time Edmund looked over his shoulder, which he did rather oftener than Lady Susan liked, not one of the rest of the party was any where to be seen. “Your ladyship should certainly know the way here,” said Edmund, hesitating, and slackening his pace; “but we have either left them all very far behind, or taken a wrong path.” “This is the prettiest way to my cottage,” said her ladyship, “to which they will all certainly bend their steps, by whatever walk they may have gone round.” Accordingly, our advance couple proceeded onward uninterrupted through delightful solitudes. Her ladyship grew more and more romantic; many of her opinions, many of her very expressions were in perfect unison with the secret sentiments of Edmund; though those sentiments had, it must be confessed another object; Edmund’s replies, therefore, were frequently bursts of feeling suddenly checked; he was often silent, and sometimes sighed. Lady Susan no longer doubted. There was a struggle in her bosom between natural modesty and a generous wish to reward the attachment of one, who was kept silent by honourable and manly motives. By this time they reached the cottage. It was all that was rural; thatched, of course, and overgrown with jessamine, honeysuckle, and ever blowing roses. Buried in the deep woods that surrounded the castle, it had a little paled in garden and a small space of green, clear in its front; and, at the foot of the green, ran a little rivulet with a plank thrown over it, to form a rustic bridge. Tamed pheasants strayed about instead of barn-door fowl, a kid was tied to the paling, and a sheep with two lambs fed on the little plot of grass before the door. Her ladyship having, with Edmund’s assistance, crossed the plank, caressed each of her favourites as she passed them, and, leading the way through the little garden, opened the latch of the cottage. All within was perfect rusticity: the furniture consisted of a small dresser with a few delf plates, a corner cupboard with some common looking cups and saucers, a deal table, a few wooden chairs, a low three legged stool, a spinning wheel, a kettle and some dried herbs suspended from the ceiling, some bright tin utensils arranged on nails against the wall over the chimney-piece, and a small looking-glass hung at the side of the latticed window.