Penelope Brandling

"[...]childish feelings. But if you were here, dearest mother, you would take me also in your arms, and I should know that you knew it was not all foolishness and cowardice, that you would know what it is, for the first time in my little life, to be without you. October 5, 1772. It has stopped raining at last, and Eustace, who is again the kindest and most considerate of men, has taken me all over the castle and the grounds, or at least a great part. St. Salvat's is even more romantically situated than I had thought; and with its towers and battlements hidden in deep woods, it makes one think of castles, like that of Otranto, which one reads of in novels; nay, I was the more reminded of the latter work of[...]".