PENELOPE: OR, LOVE’S LABOUR LOST. PENELOPE: OR, LOVE’S LABOUR LOST. A NOVEL. IN THREE VOLUMES. III. LONDON: PRINTED FOR HUNT AND CLARKE, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 1828. LONDON: PRINTED BY C. H. REYNELL. BROAD STREET, GOLDEN SQUARE. PENELOPE: OR, LOVES LABOUR LOST. CHAPTER I. Whether Miss Glossop had been fascinated by the charms of Colonel Crop’s conversation, and therefore was desirous of meeting the gentleman again, or whether the young lady had learned from any source of information that Lord Spoonbill was at the castle, and she was anxious to obtain a sight of so great an ornament to the British peerage, we cannot tell. But it so happened, that on the morning after Colonel Crop had dined at Neverden Hall, this young lady felt herself disposed to take a stroll, and she wandered in her strolling as far as the gates of Smatterton park. The gates stood half open, and there seemed to be every symptom of a thoroughfare. At least, she thought, that it would be no mighty trespass to walk into the park and to catch a glimpse of the magnificent castle. The castle, though very splendid, and furnished in very costly style, was not much of a show house. It was not open to the public on any set days; but when the family was absent the housekeeper, or the old butler, or occasionally some inferior servant of the establishment, put a trifle into their pockets by gratifying the curiosity of strangers. Miss Glossop admired most prodigiously the picturesque disposition of the plantations in the park, and when at a bend in the path the mighty castle shewed its gorgeous and turreted front, the lady could not resist the impulse of curiosity and admiration, to advance nearer and nearer still. We are not quite sure that, as she approached nearer to the grand patrician structure, she did not assume and display mightily graceful airs. But at all events it is a fact, that the heir of the Smatterton title and estate espied from his dressing-room window the fair stranger, and his lordship actually had the vanity to imagine that it could be no other than Penelope Primrose.