Kate Coventry An Autobiography

s we were in London, I should say one rainy morning-in June, "I think altogether, considering t

d a peach-coloured mantle, and such a bonnet as can only be seen at Ascot on the Cup Day, I kept back my tears, and swallowed that horrid choking feeling in my throa

hom I cannot do the least bit. My earliest recollections of Aunt Deborah, then, date from a period when I was a curly-headed little thing in a white frock (not so very long ago, after all); and the firs

lection! (Aunt Deborah likes to round her periods, as the book-people say.) The child is a sad tomboy already, and if you are going to teach

where they can be of no earthly use except for inspection of the carpet; and wears lavender kid gloves at all hours of the day and night-for Aunt Deborah is vain of her hand, and preserves its whiteness as a mark of her birth and parentage. Most families have a crotchet of some sort on which they plume themselves; some will boast that their scions rejoice one and all in long noses; others esteem the attenuated frames which they bequeath to their descendants as the most precious of legacies; one would not par

urch that rainy Sunday with Colonel Bingham, under his umbrella (a cotton one), Aunt Deborah lectured me on the impropriety of such a thing-though the Colonel is forty if he is a day, and told me repeatedly he was a "safe old gentleman." I didn't think him at all dangerous, I'm sure. I rode a race against Bob Dashwood the other morning, once round the inner ring, down Rotten Row, to finish in front of Apsley House, and beat him all to

ith you directly; or if that is too great a bounce-and indeed very few of them have the slightest pretensions to beauty-you need only hint that he rides gallantly, or waltzes nicely, or wears neat boots, and it will do quite as well. I recollect perfectly that Cousin Emily made her great marriage-five thousand a year and the chance of a baronetcy-by telling her partner in a quadrille, quite innocently, that "she should k

nubbed rather than not noticed at all. Who ever saw us fetch and carry like so many retrievers, and "sit up," so to speak, for a withered rose-bud at the fag end of an over-blown bouquet. Not that we don't love flowers i

l; added to which, they constantly give us the worst quadruped in the stable; and yet, with all these drawbacks, such is our own innate talent and capacity, we ride many an impetuous steed in safety and comfort that a man would find a dangerous and incontrollable "mount." For my part, I only wish I had been born a man-that's to say, if I could keep my own ideas and feelings. To be sure, I should lose a good many personal adornments; not that I'm vain enough to consider myself a beauty, but still one cannot help being anxious about one's own appearance, particularly if one has a full-length glass in one's bedroom. I need not be ashamed to own that I know I've got bright eyes, and good teeth, and a fres

ctly, whose face is all wrinkles and whiskers, but a little care-worn and jaded, as if he was accustomed to difficulties, and had other things to occupy his thoughts besides his horses and his dinner. I don't like a man that stares at you; and I don't like a man that can't look you in the face. He provokes me if he is all smiles, and I've no patience with him if he's c

that Ascot is hardly a place for my niece to be seen at without a chaperon, and with no other protector than John Jones-John Jones," repeated the old lady reflecti

r" at me, but I can be so good-tempered when

ng; only when John calls this afternoon, you must explain it all to him, for he's

ou want to do anything you should

s (John's papa). I can just remember him-a snuffy little man with a brown wig, but perhaps he wasn't always so; and David Jones, who was frightened at Aunt Deborah's black eyes, thought he would rather marry Aunt Dorcas. Why the two sisters didn't toss up for him I can't think; but he did marry Aunt Dorcas, and Aunt Deborah has been an old maid ever since. Sometimes even now s

ould anything be more delightful than the drive through Windsor Forest up to the Course-such a neat phaeton and pair, and John and I like a regular Darby and Joan sitting side by side. Somehow that drive through Windsor Forest made me think of a great many things I never think of at other times. Though I was going to the races, and fully prepared for a day of gaiety and amusement, a half-melancholy feeling stole over me as we rolled along amongst those stately old trees, and that lovely scenery, and those picturesque little places set down in that abode of beauty. I thought how charming it would be to saunter about h

come, and we're in heaps of time; and there's Frank Lovell," exclaimed the unconscious John as we drove on t

asily and as smoothly as if I was riding him myself, and he was proud of his burthen! When Colonist won the Cup, I felt again as if I could have cried. It was a near race, and closely contested the whole way from the distance in. I felt my blood creeping quite chill, and I could perfectly understand then the infatuation men cherish about racing, and why they ruin their wives and children at that pursuit. What a relief it was when the number was up, and I could be quite satisfied that the dear bay horse had won. As for the little jockey that rode him, I could and would have kissed him! Just then Cousin John came back to me, with his sunny, laughing face, and I naturally asked him, "Had he won his money?" John never bets; but he replied, "I'm just as pleased as if I'd won a fortune; only think, Frank Lovell has landed twelve hundred!" "Well," I replied, "I am glad of it-which is very good of me, seeing that I don't know Mr. Lovell." "Don't know Frank Lovell!" exclaimed John. "The greatest friend I have in the world." (Men's friends always are the greatest in the world.) "I'll introduce him to you; there he is-