Such was the detestable adventure of to-night. Oh, Biddy, that I should have lived to meet this mother of mine! How different from the mothers that other heroines contrive to rummage out in northern turrets and ruined chapels! I am out of all patience. Liberate her I will, of course, and make a suitable provision for her, when I get possession of my property, but positively, never will I sleep under the same roof with--(ye powers of filial love forgive me!) such a living mountain of human horror. Adieu. LETTER XXXI While her ladyship is busied in preparing for the ball of to-morrow night, I find time to copy my mother's memoirs for your perusal. Were she herself elegant and interesting, perhaps I might think them so too; and if I dislike them, it must be because I dislike her; for the plot, sentiment, diction, and pictures of nature, differ little from what we find in other novels. _Il Castello di Grimgothico_, OR MEMOIRS OF LADY HYSTERICA BELAMOUR. A NOVEL. _By Anna Maria Marianne Matilda Pottingen_, Author of the Bloody Bodkin, Sonnets on most of the Planets, &c. &c. &c. Oh, Sophonisba, Sophonisba, oh! THOMPSON. CHAPTER I Blow, blow, thou wintry wind.--SHAKESPEARE. Blow, breezes, blow.--MOORE. A STORM.--A RUSTIC REPAST.--AN ALARM.--UNCOMMON READINESS IN A CHILD.--AN INUNDATED STRANGER.--A CASTLE OUT OF REPAIR.--AN IMPAIRED CHARACTER. It was on a nocturnal night in autumnal October; the wet rain fell in liquid quantities, and the thunder rolled in an awful and Ossianly manner. The lowly, but peaceful inhabitants of a small, but decent cottage, were just sitting down to their homely, but wholesome supper, when a loud knocking at the door alarmed them. Bertram armed himself with a ladle. 'Lackadaisy!' cried old Margueritone, and little Billy seized the favourable moment to fill his mouth with meat. Innocent fraud! happy childhood! The father's lustre and the mother's bloom.--THOMPSON. Bertram then opened the door; when lo! pale, breathless, dripping, and with a look that would have shocked the Humane Society, a beautiful female tottered into the room. 'Lackadaisy, Ma'am,' said Margueritone, 'are you wet?' 'Wet!' exclaimed the fair unknown, wringing a rivulet of rain from the corner of her robe; 'O ye gods, wet!' Margueritone felt the justice, the gentleness of the reproof, and turned the subject, by recommending a glass of spirits. Spirit of my sainted sire. The stranger sipped, shook her head, and fainted. Her hair was long and dark, and the bed was ready; so since she seems in distress, we will leave her there awhile; lest we should betray an ignorance of the world, in appearing not to know the proper time for deserting people.