She had two daughters,
Margaret and Alice, both considered very handsome, but some years
older than I. This difference in age, however, did not prevent our
being on very friendly terms, and I was constantly invited to their
house--in the summer to croquet and archery, in the winter to balls.
Like most elderly ladies of that period, Lady Holkitt was very fond of
cards, and she and my mother used frequently to play bezique and
cribbage, whilst the girls and I indulged in something rather more
frivolous. On those occasions the carriage always came for us at ten,
since my mother, for some reason or other--I had a shrewd suspicion it
was on account of the alleged haunting--would never return home after
that time. When she accepted an invitation to a ball, it was always
conditionally that Lady Holkitt would put us both up for the night,
and the carriage used, then, to come for us the following day, after
one o'clock luncheon. I shall never forget the last time I went to a
dance at "The Old White House," though it is now rather more than
fifty years ago. My mother had not been very well for some weeks,
having, so she thought, taken cold internally. She had not had a
doctor, partly because she did not feel ill enough, and partly because
the only medical man near us was an apothecary, of whose skill she had
a very poor opinion. My mother had quite made up her mind to accompany
me to the ball, but at the last moment, the weather being appalling,
she yielded to advice, and my aunt Norah, who happened to be staying
with us at the time, chaperoned me instead.
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