'God bless you, Miss Maud, darling. You must not fret; mind, the time won't be long going over--_no_ time at all; and you'll be bringing back a fine young gentleman--who knows? as great as the Duke of Wellington, for your husband; and I'll take the best of care of everything, and the birds and the dogs, till you come back; and I'll go and see you and Mary, if you'll allow, in Derbyshire;' and so forth. I got into the carriage, and bid Branston, who shut the door, good-bye, and kissed hands to Mrs. Rusk, who was smiling and drying her eyes and courtesying on the hall-door steps. The dogs, who had started gleefully with the carriage, were called back by Branston, and driven home, wondering and wistful, looking back with ears oddly cocked and tails dejected. My heart thanked them for their kindness, and I felt like a stranger, and very desolate. It was a bright, clear morning. It had been settled that it was not worth the trouble changing from the carriage to the railway for sake of five-and-twenty miles, and so the entire journey of sixty miles was to be made by the post road--the pleasantest travelling, if the mind were free. The grander and more distant features of the landscape we may see well enough from the window of the railway-carriage; but it is the foreground that interests and instructs us, like a pleasant gossiping history; and _that_ we had, in old days, from the post-chaise window. It was more than travelling picquet. Something of all conditions of life--luxury and misery--high spirits and low;--all sorts of costume, livery, rags, millinery; faces buxom, faces wrinkled, faces kind, faces wicked;--no end of interest and suggestion, passing in a procession silent and vivid, and all in their proper scenery. The golden corn-sheafs--the old dark-alleyed orchards, and the high streets of antique towns. There were few dreams brighter, few books so pleasant. We drove by the dark wood--it always looked dark to me--where the 'mausoleum' stands--where my dear parents both lay now. I gazed on its sombre masses not with a softened feeling, but a peculiar sense of pain, and was glad when it was quite past. All the morning I had not shed a tear. Good Mary Quince cried at leaving Knowl; Lady Knollys' eyes were not dry as she kissed and blessed me, and promised an early visit; and the dark, lean, energetic face of the housekeeper was quivering, and her cheeks wet, as I drove away. But I, whose grief was sorest, never shed a tear. I only looked about from one familiar object to another, pale, excited, not quite apprehending my departure, and wondering at my own composure.