My Lady Dedlock has returned to her house in town for a few days previous to her departure for Paris, where her ladyship intends to stay some weeks, after which her movements are uncertain. The fashionable intelligence says so for the comfort of the Parisians, and it knows all fashionable things. To know things otherwise were to be unfashionable. My Lady Dedlock has been down at what she calls, in familiar conversation, her "place" in Lincolnshire. The waters are out in Lincolnshire. An arch of the bridge in the park has been sapped and sopped away. The adjacent low-lying ground for half a mile in breadth is a stagnant river with melancholy trees for islands in it and a surface punctured all over, all day long, with falling rain. My Lady Dedlock's place has been extremely dreary. The weather for many a day and night has been so wet that the trees seem wet through, and the soft loppings and prunings of the woodman's axe can make no crash or crackle as they fall. The deer, looking soaked, leave quagmires where they pass. The shot of a rifle loses its sharpness in the moist air, and its smoke moves in a tardy little cloud towards the green rise, coppice-topped, that makes a background for the falling rain. The view from my Lady Dedlock's own windows is alternately a lead-coloured view and a view in Indian ink. The vases on the stone terrace in the foreground catch the rain all day; and the heavy drops fall--drip, drip, drip--upon the broad flagged pavement, called from old time the Ghost's Walk, all night. On Sundays the little church in the park is mouldy; the oaken pulpit breaks out into a cold sweat; and there is a general smell and taste as of the ancient Dedlocks in their graves. My Lady Dedlock (who is childless), looking out in the early twilight from her boudoir at a keeper's lodge and seeing the light of a fire upon the latticed panes, and smoke rising from the chimney, and a child, chased by a woman, running out into the rain to meet the shining figure of a wrapped-up man coming through the gate, has been put quite out of temper. My Lady Dedlock says she has been "bored to death."

My Lady Dedlock has returned to her house in town for a few days before departing for Paris, where she intends to stay some weeks. My Lady Dedlock has been down at what she calls her "place" in Lincolnshire.
There are floods in Lincolnshire. An arch of the bridge in the park has been sapped away. The low-lying ground has become a stagnant river with melancholy trees for islands and a surface punctured all over, all day long, with falling rain. The deer leave quagmires where they pass.
The view from my Lady Dedlock's windows is lead-coloured. The vases on the stone terrace catch the rain all day; and the heavy drops fall upon the broad flag-stoned pavement, known as the Ghost's Walk. On Sundays the little church in the park is mouldy; there is a general smell as of the ancient Dedlocks in their graves. My Lady Dedlock (who is childless), looking out in the early twilight from a game-keeper's lodge, and seeing a child running out into the rain to meet the wrapped-up figure of a man coming through the gate, has been put quite out of temper. My Lady Dedlock says she has been "bored to death."
