THE GREY HOUSE AT ENDLESTONE. CHAPTER I. A PAGE FROM HILDA'S DIARY. Unthinking, idle, wild, and young, I laughed and talked, and danced and sung; That all the world was made for me." "O Life, O Beyond, Thou art strange, thou art sweet." "How beautiful is life! What a happy world is this! How sweet it is to live-to love! And yet cynics would have us believe that sorrow is the natural inheritance of poor, frail mortality; that pitfalls and snares beset our path from the cradle to the grave; that disappointments and vexations are the common lot! Well! some people, I suppose, do have rather a troublesome time of it; there are the sick, the poverty-stricken, the unlucky, the friendless, to say nothing of the gloomy, ill-tempered folk, who look always on the dark side of things, and cast their own unlovely shadow on all around them—these, perhaps, have some reason to affirm that life is a vale of tears, happiness a myth, and expectation a veritable jack-o'-lantern ! But I-I am very happy! Words cannot express my felicity, my full content with the fate that Providence allots me. I think I must be the happiest girl in all London to-night! I really think I must! There is not even a crumpled roseleaf to disturb my slumbers. Let me count up my advantages-my_ 'blessings!' as the goody-goody people would tell me I ought to call them. Imprimis-good health! I never had an ache or a pain in my life, except when I gashed my arm with papa's sword, which, of course, I had no business to touch. Next-a very fair pedigree; we are not exactly aristocrats, we Capels, but we are well-connected,' as people say, and the roots of our family-tree go down a long way into the British soil; I am a gentlewoman born and bred. Next-a very tolerable amount of good looks. I don't think I can take rank as a beauty, but I am well enough. Yes, I dare say many people would call me a decidedly pretty girl, because I have I really have-a very nice complexion, and regular features, and-as 'somebody" said to me only two hours ago 'as sweet and bright a smile as ever woman wore.' Was that original, I wonder, or was it only a quotation? That same somebody said also, that I was graceful as a nymph and stately as a duchess! And, what is more, I am sure that he meant it -that silly Horace Trelawny! I suppose I may count his love as the supremest of all my blessings, though he has not as yet spoken to his father, nor declared himself to mine. But Aunt Mowbray approves, and she thinks papa will, readily enough, consent to our engagement—as, indeed, why should he not? For my Horace is better born than myself, nobly descended, wonderfully handsome, by no means poor, I imagine, without a blemish on his character-though the Raynham girls do say that he is a terrible flirt. And last, not least, he loves me with all his heart and soul! And I love him-my brave, beautiful, high-minded, gifted Horace. I would marry him if he were as poor as Job. I would rather live with him in a cottage, or, what is far worse, in a stuffy, stupid, little eight-roomed house, with steep, narrow stairs and low ceilings, in one of those long, dull, shabby-genteel London streets, where itinerant vendors cry their wares, children squall upon the door-steps, and every house is exactly like its neighbour, than I would live in a castle with any other man alive, though he were a peer, or even a royal prince. "Dear me, what nonsense I am writing! Well, people in love are always allowed to be a little foolish, and I do not see why I should not avail myself of the universal licence. Heigho! it is very sweet to be in love-to be honestly in love-with the most delightful man in all the world, who loves me even more than I love him-at least, he says so. I am quite ashamed of having written that 'at least,' for, of course, what he says is true-true as the Bible! There is not an atom of deceit or treachery in Horace's nature. Yes, my love, my own Horace-I may call you so now without being unmaidenly, since you have asked me and I have promised to be your wife-I do trust you wholly, perfectly, and without reservation; I love you; I love you more than tongue can tell. I have always been happy, even at that school in Paris; I am happier now than I have ever been before-far happier; but I shall be still happier in the time to come, when I am Horace's wife, and we are together always and for ever.” Hilda Capel wrote these words in her diary; she had kept a sort of diary from her childhood, and, for the last three weeks, she had posted up her journal regularly every night-or sometimes, as was the case in the present instance, every morning-before going to bed. For Hilda had just come home from a ball-one of the most brilliant of an unwontedly brilliant London season, now drawing to its close. Let us look at her, as she clasps and locks her dainty MS. volume, and wipes her gold pen on a gay little penwiper, and begins slowly to take off her ornaments, while the toilet lights already flicker in their sockets, and outside the rosy dawn is surging over the tree-tops in Kensington Gardens. She is alone, for she is a kind-hearted girl, and always excuses her maid from attendance when she is likely to be late; and though she has danced no end of round dances-chiefly with Horace Trelawny-and dined out before going to the ball, and had a kettledrum of her own before that in her aunt's drawing-room (which was virtually hers), and had driven in the Row before |