I cannot tell you what a grand place this is. I did not think there were so many beautiful things that money can buy. We swept up to the house up a long drive, arched by stately elms. The door was opened by a manservant in livery, and a neat and pretty maid took me to a room which is to be all my own, and Mrs. Buckley says that Nelly is to be my very own maid, to order about just as I like. Isn't it ridiculous! Why, she insists on combing and brushing my hair every night and morning, and wants to arrange my black mane in some fashion that she says is all the mode. But, oh, my dear! I do wish you could see this lovely bedroom. It looks out upon the grounds, at this time of year somewhat north and wintry-looking, but I can well imagine what like they are in the spring and summer and autumn, with their well-kept beds and noble trees, and the background of the lofty Pennine Range. And talking of beds! I was almost afraid the first night to go to sleep in mine, so high that I have to have a step to climb into it, so wide that one cannot touch the edge from the centre, and so furnished with mattresses of down that one seems to be sinking into a caressing sea of rest--a great, massive mahogany four-poster, its pillars richly carved, and from the lofty canopy curtains of blue silk fall to the ground. And there's a mighty wardrobe that would hold more dresses than any one woman, I should have thought, could wear in a long lifetime, and it has a glass from top to bottom, in which you can see yourself from head to foot. There has been a dressmaker here from Manchester, and such choosing of silks and satins and velvets and laces and what not, and such measuring and fitting and matching of colours you never saw. Nelly dresses me every night in a wondrous dinner gown, and I am decked out so in rubies and pearls and even diamonds--rings, bracelets, and necklets--that when I stand before that marvel of a glass I catch my breath and ask, "Can this be Miriam, the poor gipsy maid, that you fetched from Burnplatts to share your bed and home?" And I am to have a horse to ride after I've had lessons--I shall like that. And oh! Ruth, I am to be taught to play upon whatever musical instrument I may choose, and I'm to learn to dance. Oh! what will your father say--your dear, dear father?