to regret that I had not perished!

During our journey Robinson entreated me to overlook anything harsh that
might appear in the manners of his "uncle,"--for he still denied that
Mr. Harris was his father. But above all things he conjured me to
conceal my real age, and to say that I was some years older than he knew
me to be. To this proposal I readily consented, and I felt myself firm
in courage at the moment when we came within sight of Tregunter.

Mr. Harris was then building the family mansion, and resided in a pretty
little decorated cottage which was afterward converted into domestic
offices. We passed through a thick wood, the mountains at every break
meeting our eyes, covered with thin clouds, and rising in a sublime
altitude above the valley. A more romantic space of scenery never met
the human eye! I felt my mind inspired with a pensive melancholy, and
was only awakened from my reverie by the postboy stopping at the mansion
of Tregunter.

Mr. Harris came out to receive me. I wore a dark claret-coloured
riding-habit, with a white beaver hat and feathers. He embraced me with
excessive cordiality, while Miss Robinson, my husband's sister, with
cold formality led me into the house. I never shall forget her looks or
her manner. Had her brother presented the most abject being to her, she
could not have taken my hand with a more frigid demeanour. Miss
Robinson, though not more than twenty years of age, was Gothic in her
appearance and stiff in her deportment; she was of low stature and
clumsy, with a countenance peculiarly formed for the expression of
sarcastic vulgarity--a short snub nose, turned up at the point, a head
thrown back with an air of _hauteur_; a gaudy-coloured chintz gown, a
thrice-bordered cap, with a profusion of ribbons, and a countenance