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Updated: June 13, 2025
Aunt Horsingham, brooding over the teapot as usual, had been in her worst of humours ever since she came down, and tried to look as if no bell that ever was cast had power to move her grim resolve. "A message by electric telegraph," exclaimed Cousin Amelia, who is always anticipating some catastrophe; "no visitor would ever call at such a time."
Aunt Horsingham is tall and thin, with a turn-up nose, rather red at the point, a back that never stoops, and a grim smile that never varies. She dresses in bright colours, affecting strange and startling contrasts, both of hues and material.
She has befriended me more than I could expect. At first, when I saw 'Aunt Deborah' alone in the chariot, it flashed across me that perhaps you were to stay en penitence at Dangerfield. But I knew Lady Horsingham had a pony-carriage.
Aunt Deborah was completely overpowered by so much kindness. "You'd better have the carriage all to yourself you and your maid," persisted Lady Horsingham. "I'll drive Kate as far as the station in the pony-carriage. Kate, you're not afraid to trust yourself with me in the pony-carriage?" "Not I, indeed, aunt," was my reply, "nor with anybody else, for that matter.
I was a great pet of Uncle Horsingham; and as Cousin Amelia was not much of an equestrian, he proposed that I should get upon the chestnut mare first, and try her paces and temper before his daughter mounted her. As we neared the stables out came one of the grooms with a sidesaddle on his head, and the longest face I ever beheld.
"Because I liked some one else better," was my reply; and I think those few words settled the whole business. I shall soon be five-and-twenty now, and on my birthday I am to be married. Aunt Deborah has got better ever since it has all been settled. Everybody seems pleased, and I am sure no one can be better pleased than I am. Only Lady Horsingham says, "Kate will never settle."
By the way, Miss Horsingham, I saw a curious old picture the other day in the West of England, purporting to be a portrait of the celebrated 'Ysonde of Brittany, with the White Hand, in which I traced a strong resemblance to some of the Horsinghams, with whom I am acquainted.
It was better in my poor uncle's time, for he would have made any place lively; but since his death the Park has relapsed into its natural solemnity, and I am quite sure that if ever I do go into a convent my sensations will be exactly like those which I have always experienced when visiting Aunt Horsingham.
And after tea Aunt Horsingham would read to us, in her dry harsh voice, long passages from the Spectator, very excellent articles from the Rambler, highly interesting in their day no doubt, but which lose some of their point after an interval of nearly a century; or, worse than all, Pope's "Homer" or Cowper's "Task," running the lines into each other, so as to avoid what she called "the sing-song of the rhymes," till the poet's effusions sounded like the most extraordinary prose, cut into lengths, as we ladies should say, for no earthly purpose but to make nonsense of the whole thing.
"You'll enjoy yourself to-day, I trust, Miss Coventry," said Aunt Horsingham, looking as black as thunder. "Mind you don't get a fall," observed Cousin Amelia with a sneer; but I cared little for their remarks and remonstrances.
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