'
'I wish I had not seen him, Milly. I feel as if it were an ill omen. He
always looks so cross; and I dare say he wished us some ill,' I said.
'No, no, you don't know Dudley: if he were angry, he'd say nothing that's
funny; no, he's not vexed, only shamming vexed.'
The scenery through which we passed was very pretty. The road brought us
through a narrow and wooded glen. Such studies of ivied rocks and twisted
roots! A little stream tinkled lonely through the hollow. Poor Milly! In
her odd way she made herself companionable. I have sometimes fancied an
enjoyment of natural scenery not so much a faculty as an acquirement. It is
so exquisite in the instructed, so strangely absent in uneducated humanity.
But certainly with Milly it was inborn and hearty; and so she could enter
into my raptures, and requite them.
Then over one of those beautiful Derbyshire moors we drove, and so into
a wide wooded hollow, where was our first view of Cousin Monica's pretty
gabled house, beautified with that indescribable air of shelter and comfort
which belongs to an old English residence, with old timber grouped round
it, and something in its aspect of the quaint old times and bygone
merrymakings, saying sadly, but genially, 'Come in: I bid you welcome.
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