_Coombe Ashton, Sept. 10._
HERE am I, Rosamond Corbet no more, but Rosamond Stanton, a sober
matron of a week's standing. After all we changed our plans at the
last, and came on here the day but one after the wedding, on account of
some business which had to be attended to. Alice was quite furious at
my being carried off so soon, but none of us at Stanton-Corbet were in
any mood for festivity, and I was by no means sorry to escape the usual
round of wedding banquets and jests, and have a little time to think.
My father and mother and Joyce came over with us, and left us only this
morning.
We are all sad at Harry's going away, and Joyce is broken-hearted. I
expected from her a tempest of grief, and then all over; but it goes
much deeper than that. I do believe those two childish hearts have
waked up to real love. I had a long talk with Joyce yesterday, telling
her how she must strive to be docile and cheerful, so as to take my
place as a daughter at home, and make them all happy.
"I will do my best," said she, "but I can never make your place good,
Rosamond."
"Nobody can ever exactly fill another's place perhaps," said I; "but we
can all do our best to adorn our own. You have a great deal to learn,
'tis true, but your capacity is good, and in my mother and Master
Ellenwood you have the kindest of teachers. Now, what are you smiling
at?"
"Because you talk so old!" answered the saucy popinjay. "One would
think Mistress Stanton was twenty years older than our Rosamond!"
"Whereas she is really many years younger," I answered, glad to see her
laugh, though at my own expense. She sobered down, however, and begged
my pardon for her sauciness, adding that she meant to be very good, and
learn everything that my mother would teach her.
"And I mean to be happy, too!" she added, very resolutely, though
with some bright drops standing in her eyes. "I am so thankful to Sir
Stephen, that it does not seem as if I could ever do enough for him.
Madam says I must thank God too, and I do. When I think how I lived
with my Lady Carey, it seems as if I had been in a bad dream from which
you came and waked me. It was a blessed wakening for me."
And for us too, I told her, and indeed I think it will prove so—she
shows herself so well conditioned, and it will be a real blessing to
Harry to have a wife brought up under our mother's eye. But that is
looking very far forward.
There is no village here, only a little fishing hamlet, at the mouth of
the Coombe; but to my surprise I find they have really a dame school,
taught by a woman who came hither last year. There is no church nearer
than Clovelly, which is three miles away, and Stanton, which is just as
far in the other direction.
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