'
She paused at the stile which went over the hedge just beside an old
fluted pier, with a grass-grown urn at top, and overgrown with a
climbing rose-tree, just such a study as a young lady might put in her
album; and then she recollected the long letter from old Miss Wardle
that Aunt Becky had sent her to read, with a request, which from that
quarter was a command, that she should return it by six o'clock, for
Aunt Becky, even in matters indifferent, liked to name hours, and nail
people sharp and hard to futile appointments and barren punctualities.
She paused at the stile; she liked the old pier; its partner next the
river was in fragments, and the ruin and the survivor had both been
clothed by good Mrs. Strafford--who drew a little, and cultivated the
picturesque--with the roses I have mentioned, besides woodbine and ivy.
She had old Miss Wardle's letter in her hand, full, of course, of
shocking anecdotes about lunatics, and the sufferings of Fleet
prisoners, and all the statistics, and enquiries, and dry little
commissions, with which that worthy lady's correspondence abounded. It
was open in her hand, and rustled sharp and stiffly in the air, but it
was not inviting just then.
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