"Ruh-roh. Where did I put my portmanteau," I thought to myself,
running back inside, where I found it. It was next to the sherry
that Hiram had decanted for our mid-morning repast. I am getting
to be so forgetful. Anyhoo. I collected my portmanteau and
partook of a final seed-cake. Thus I issued forth in the cab, no
aging spinster but yet too old to dally with gamekeepers.

Soon thereafter the cab halted while a flock of short-wooled sheep
ambled past at the rate of two miles per hour. The warmest admirer
of sheep cannot say that they move quickly. I became flurried.
"Cool it," said the cabbie, flushed from his noontime joint of
mutton.

While we dawdled I gazed at the scenery. To the left was an
untilled meadow. I could not see to the right because my neck was
cramped. I queried the cabbie as to whether there existed, in the
area of my blindness, a craggy hill or mellow glade. He but grunted,
that sturdy yeoman, whereby I vaunted myself above the quagmire of
thoughtful exertion.

We arrived in due time and I retired to the gazebo, where game and
cheese were at once produced. I surveyed the scene with an
aggressively poetical eye; for I am poetical in everything, and in
nothing more poetical than the surveying of scenes. From which it
may be gathered that I am a woman of commensense, and furthermore,
a woman with a Destiny.


Index