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.
But when we reached the old bridge, with the tall osiers standing by the
buttress, and looked back at poor Knowl--the places we love and are leaving
look so fairy-like and so sad in the clear distance, and this is the finest
view of the gabled old house, with its slanting meadow-lands and noble
timber reposing in solemn groups--I gazed at the receding vision, and the
tears came at last, and I wept in silence long after the fair picture was
hidden from view by the intervening uplands.
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