MY LADY LUDLOW
by Elizabeth Gaskell


CHAPTER I.


I am an old woman now, and things are very different to what they were in
my youth. Then we, who travelled, travelled in coaches, carrying six
inside, and making a two days' journey out of what people now go over in
a couple of hours with a whizz and a flash, and a screaming whistle,
enough to deafen one. Then letters came in but three times a week:
indeed, in some places in Scotland where I have stayed when I was a girl,
the post came in but once a month;--but letters were letters then; and we
made great prizes of them, and read them and studied them like books. Now
the post comes rattling in twice a day, bringing short jerky notes, some
without beginning or end, but just a little sharp sentence, which well-
bred folks would think too abrupt to be spoken. Well, well! they may all
be improvements,--I dare say they are; but you will never meet with a
Lady Ludlow in these days.

I will try and tell you about her. It is no story: it has, as I said,
neither beginning, middle, nor end.

My father was a poor clergyman with a large family. My mother was always
said to have good blood in her veins; and when she wanted to maintain her
position with the people she was thrown among,--principally rich
democratic manufacturers, all for liberty and the French Revolution,--she
would put on a pair of ruffles, trimmed with real old English point, very
much darned to be sure,--but which could not be bought new for love or