THE MANSE AND ITS INMATES. 21 



ness; while she forbade all waste she allowed no want, and her 

 table was liberally, handsomely, and even tastefully furnished ; yet 

 she kept no housekeeper, and only what is called a " good plain 

 cook." 



Mrs. Hurst was the centre of her own circle, the governing- prin- 

 ciple of her own system, and her influencing power was sufficiently 

 manifested, though in softened characters, in her daughters Penny 

 and Priscy had been Hatty and Shatty, and would be Dolly and 

 Dosy, while all six were, in proper gradations, approximating to 

 their mamma. 



ft was at the close of the Christinas vacation that Ruth had entered 

 upon her engagement with the Hursts, and it was at the beginning 

 of March in the following year that she took possession of her place 

 in the heavy coach for the purpose of proceeding to " Caledonia 

 bleak and wild ! " 



Larch Hills, the seat of Sir Kenneth Maitland, was situated in one 

 of the most southern counties of Scotland,*and there still existed in the 

 country and inhabitants many signs of barbarism and want of culti- 

 vation, sufficient to show that border civilization proceeded but 

 slowly. 



The Larch Hills' carriage met her at the post-town, and, for the con- 

 venience of her luggage, empty. She had a solitary drive of about 

 eleven miles, principally through muirland ; and when she entered 

 the leafless avenue and stopped before the entrance of the large 

 stone mansion, on a dreary cheerless afternoon in March, about 

 five o'clock, she felt a sense of desolation such as she had 

 never experienced before. It was little to be wondered at. Ruth 

 Watson was still a cockney ; she had been to school at Wandsworth, 

 where there are many rural walks, especially Dunsford Lane, 

 leading from Wandsworth Common to the delightful village of 

 Merton (rendered so interesting by having been the residence of 

 the immortal Nelson), by the skirts of Wimbleton Park, the beautiful 

 seat of Earl Spencer, where at certain seasons of the year one 

 can hardly walk ten yards without starting a pheasant to surprise you 

 in its turn with the noise and bustle of its apparently laborious and 

 undesired rise, or look towards an open space without seeing half a 

 dozen hares gamboling. She had resided eighteen months in a small 

 town in Essex, where she saw only the said smalltown and turnpike roads 

 leading to and from it, as she walked in procession with the children 

 of the school, when they took their dull, formal, periodical, prome- 

 nades. Brompton, with its neighbourhood, dressed like gardens and 

 pleasure-grounds, and the Isle of Thanet, one cultivated corn coun- 

 try, were equally ill adapted to prepare her for what she now saw, 

 and poor Ruth descended the steps of the carriage very much with 

 the feelings of one who had come to the end of the world. 



Sir Kenneth was engaged with his factor, and Lady Maitland and 

 her daughters, not expecting her to arrive so soon, had retired to 

 their rooms to dress for dinner, there being company in the house. 

 The housekeeper ran upstairs to attend Miss Watson, but she would 

 have thought it derogating from her dignity to have advanced out- 

 side of the door. As soon as Ruth appeared in the entrance hall 



