riding together in the country on their return to the family residence;
again, of his bending over the piano as she was playing the Welsh air of
"Mary Anne;" and lastly, of his overhearing her heartless speech to her
maid, which first opened his eyes to the real state of affairs--"Do you
think I could care for that lame boy?"--upon which he rushed out of the
house, and ran, like a hunted creature, to Newstead. Thence he shortly
returned from the rougher school of life to his haunts and tasks at
Harrow. A year later the pair again met to take farewell, on the hill of
Annesley--an incident he has commemorated in two short stanzas, that have
the sound of a wind moaning over a moor. "I suppose," he said, "the next
time I see you, you will be Mrs. Chaworth?" "I hope so," she replied (her
betrothed, Mr. Musters, had agreed to assume her family name). The
announcement of her marriage, which took place in August, 1805, was made
to him by his mother, with the remark, "I have some news for you. Take out
your handkerchief; you will require it." On hearing what she had to say,
with forced calm he turned the conversation to other subjects; but he was
long haunted by a loss which he has made the theme of many of his verses.
In 1807 he sent to the lady herself the lines beginning,--

O had my fate been join'd with thine.

In the following year he accepted an invitation to dine at Annesley, and
was visibly affected by the sight of the infant daughter of Mrs. Chaworth,
to whom he addressed a touching congratulation. Shortly afterwards, when
about to leave England for the first time, he finally addressed her in the
stanzas,--

'Tis done, and shivering in the gale,
The bark unfurls her snowy sail.