cows.'

In the course of half an hour the servant summoned the children to
the house. The horses were ready, and they were now to return. Lady
Annabel received them with her usual cheerfulness.

'Well, dear children,' said she, 'have you been very much amused?'

Venetia ran forward, and embraced her mother with even unusual
fondness. She was mindful of Plantagenet's injunctions, and was
resolved not to revive her mother's grief by any allusion that could
recall the past; but her heart was, nevertheless, full of sympathy,
and she could not have rode home, had she not thus expressed her love
for her mother.

With the exception of this strange incident, over which, afterwards,
Venetia often pondered, and which made her rather serious the whole of
the ride home, this expedition to Marringhurst was a very happy day.




CHAPTER XII.


This happy summer was succeeded by a singularly wet autumn. Weeks of
continuous rain rendered it difficult even for the little Cadurcis,
who defied the elements, to be so constant as heretofore in his daily
visits to Cherbury. His mother, too, grew daily a greater invalid,
and, with increasing sufferings and infirmities, the natural