"
On the third day with the Beaufort hounds, my horse fell heavily
in a ditch with me and, getting up, galloped away. I was picked up
by a good-looking man, who took me into his house, gave me tea
and drove me back in his brougham to Easton Grey; I fell
passionately in love with him. He owned a horse called Lardy
Dardy, on which he mounted me.
Charty and the others chaffed me much about my new friend, saying
that my father would never approve of a Tory and that it was lucky
he was married.
I replied, much nettled, that I did not want to marry any one and
that, though he was a Tory, he was not at all stupid and would
probably get into the Cabinet.
This was my first shrewd political prophecy, for he is in the
Cabinet now.
I cannot look at him without remembering that he was the first man
I was ever in love with, and that, at the age of seventeen, I said
he would be in the Cabinet in spite of his being a Tory.
For pure unalloyed happiness those days at Easton Grey were
undoubtedly the most perfect of my life. Lucy's sweetness to me,
the beauty of the place, the wild excitement of riding over fences
and the perfect certainty I had that I would ride better than any
one in the whole world gave me an insolent confidence which no
earthquake could have shaken.
Off and on, I felt qualms over my lack of education; and when I
was falling into a happy sleep, dreaming I was overriding hounds,
echoes of "Pray, Mamma" out of Mrs. Markham, or early punishments
of unfinished poems would play about my bed.
Pages:
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108