Kate Coventry: An Autobiography

It is very disagreeable to face a large party with anything on your mind that you cannot help thinking must be known, or at least suspected, by your associates. When I came down...

It was Aunt Deborah who spoke. Dear Aunt Deborah! I felt as if I had not been half attentive enough to her lately. I had selfishly been so taken up with my own thoughts and my o...

So the bells rung merrily at Dangerfield, and the rustics huzzaed for their landlord and the comely village maidens envied the bride; and Lucy was Lady Horsingham now, with new...

"Kate," said Lady Scapegrace, as she shut the door of her snug dressing-room and wheeled an easy-chair before the fire for my benefit--"Kate, you're a foolish girl; it strikes m...

I was not sorry to be once again fairly settled in Lowndes Street. Even in the winter London has its charms. People don't watch everything you do or carp at everything you say....

I hope I have as much command of countenance as falls to the lot of any lady who don't paint; but when I returned from my walk in the Park the following morning I must have look...

A very pretty little room it was; none of your enormous dreary state-apartments, dull as a theatre in the daytime, with a bed like a mourning coach, and corners of gloom and mys...

_Saturday._--Well, it is over at last; and upon my word I begin to think I am capable of anything after all I have got through to-day since breakfast. Scarcely had I finished th...

The Sunday at Scamperley, I am sorry to say, was hardly observed with that degree of respect and strictness which is due to the one sacred day of the week. Very few people went...

Gentlemen think it right to affect a contempt for stag-hunting, and many a battle have I had with Cousin John when he has provoked me by "pooh-poohing" that exhilarating amuseme...

_Friday._--This has been an eventful day. I thought somehow it would be so; at all events, the first day's hunting is always an era to me--so when I came down to breakfast in my...

I need quote no more from my diary, as the next few days offered no incident worthy of recording to break the monotony of our life at Dangerfield Hall. Drearier than ever it was...

It may easily be believed that I took an early walk next morning before breakfast. No sooner had I made my escape from Aunt Horsingham's room, than, in utter defiance of the col...

It was a melancholy work to glide out of London by the last train, and to think that one's gaieties were over for that summer, and that there was nothing to look forward to till...

When Aunt Deborah is laid up with one of _her_ colds she always has a wonderful accession of "propriety" accompanying the disorder; and that which would appear to her at the wor...

"Kate," said Aunt Deborah to me as we sat with our feet on the fender one rainy afternoon--or, as we were in London, I should say one rainy morning--in June, "I think altogether...

"Now then, Kate, late as usual; my phaeton's at the door, and we've only an hour and five minutes to do the twelve miles," said Cousin John's cheery voice as he accosted me on t...

I must despair of being able in simple narrative to convey the remotest idea of the dullness of Dangerfield Hall; but as during my residence there I beguiled the weary hours by...

I wonder whether any lady in England has a maid who, to use that domestic's own expression, is capable of "giving satisfaction." If any lady does rejoice in such an Abigail, I s...

It is wonderful how soon the London season comes to an end; and, in fact, it is difficult to say when its tide is really at the flood. Single men--and they are necessary ingredi...

As for spending a whole morning in the drawing-room with the ladies it is what I cannot and will not submit to. Working and scandal, scandal and working, from half-past ten till...

We've got such a sweet little house in Lowndes Street--to my mind the very best situation in London. When I say _we_, of course I mean Aunt Deborah and myself. We live together,...

I really had not courage to take my usual canter the morning after Hampton Races. I did not feel as if I could face the umbrella and the cigar at the rails in "the Ride," and ye...

Who was there to whom I could apply? Sir Guy, of course, was out of the question. Then, in an affair of such delicacy, I could not consult a _young_ man; besides, these boys, I...