AND OTHER TALES. BY MARY RUSSELL MITFORD, AUTHOR OF "OUR VILLAGE." IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1854. BIBL 249. W. 291. DOLLY AND HER BEAUX. SEVERAL years ago, I spent some months with a near and dear relation, whom I shall call General Vernon, and his no less charming wife, the Lady Anne, at their fine place in the North of England. They had a large and lovely family of boys, from 18 years old to 8, some at Eton, some, at a military school, and one already in VOL. II. B the army and of girls from 15 downwards, all at home; the elder ones under the care of an accomplished governess, and the youngest, a fairy of three-and-ahalf (three-and-sixpence, as her father used to say, when the little lass's age came under discussion), who not yet subjected to the discipline of the school-room, and quite weary of the large, dull, deserted nursery, and the good old family nurse, Mrs. Hicks (I believe she had brought up three generations of the Vernon's), a tun of a woman, who sate in state in a great easy arm chair, grumbling over her corns and her rheumatism,-used to escape as often as possible to the gayer parts of the mansion; a privileged and most welcome intruder, whose merry voice might be heard singing through hall and gallery the moment you entered the door, and found indeed an almost infallible guide as to which part of the house, the library |