ABSTRACT
Silent and sad, Althea proceeded on the way to Capelstoke. Her road lay along the coast of Devonshire and Dorsetshire, and through a country various and rich; but Althea heeded it not. Every object that had once attracted her attention was now passed by unregarded. She saw nothing but the figure of the friend she deplored; she heard nothing but her last accents. If, calling off her mind a moment from this theme of hopeless regret, she carried it forward to the future, the cold and repulsive looks of Lady Dacres, and the constrained kindness of Sir Audley, were before her. In a family where she knew the mistress of it considered her as an unwelcome addition, how little of real affection and of soothing friendship had she to expect! – Her spirits, agitated by these reflections, sunk in proportion as her journey shortened – and when the chaise drove through the new-built Lodge, about half a mile from the house, she was so totally depressed, that, notwithstanding all her endeavours, she was hardly able, when it arrived at the door of the house, to get out, and follow the footman into a parlour. – The man, as if he neither knew her, nor had received any orders for her reception, asked if her baggage was to be taken from the chaise; then ordering the postillion to drive round to the side of the offices, he went away. Mrs. Midgely, Lady Dacres’s woman, a person of infinite delicacy, had already left her, on pretence of being greatly fatigued.
