When this delightful meal was over, a stroll as far as the church and the
stately Hall of the Curzons, back to the inn, an hour or so in the snug
bar with the village worthies, who welcomed our almost weekly visits and
the yarns we brought from Derby town; then back home by the broad
highway, under the star-lit sky--an afternoon and an evening to be ever
remembered.

The _Kedleston Inn_, I am told, no longer exists; no longer greets the
eye of the wayfarer, no longer welcomes him to its pleasant bar. Now it
is a farmhouse. No youthful enthusiast can now be beguiled into calling
it _The Maypole_; and, indeed, in these unromantic days, though it had
remained unchanged, there would be little danger of this I think.

Soon after this memorable day Tom left the service of the Midland for a
more lucrative situation with a mercantile firm in Glasgow, and I was
left widowed and alone. For six months or more we had been living
together in the country, some four miles from Derby, in the house of the
village blacksmith. It was a pretty house, stood a little apart from the
forge, and was called Rock Villa. I wonder if the present Engineer-in-
Chief of the Midland Railway recollects a little incident connected with
it. He (now Chief Engineer then a well grown youth of eighteen or
nineteen) was younger than I, and was preparing for the engineering
profession in which he has succeeded so well. He lived with his parents
very near to Rock Villa, and one day, for some reason or other, we said
we would each of us make a sketch of Rock Villa, afterwards compare them,
and let his sister decide which was the better, so we set to work and did
our best. In the matter of correct drawing his, I am sure, far surpassed
mine, but the young lady decided in my favour, perhaps because my
production looked more picturesque and romantic than his!