expected. A letter from Annette. I got tea when I reached home, and then set on reading German. I wrote part of a letter to Coleridge, went to bed and slept badly.
Tuesday, 16th.—A fine morning, but I had persuaded myself not to expect Wm., I believe because I was afraid of being disappointed. I ironed all day. He came just at tea time, had only seen Mary H. for a couple of hours between Eamont Bridge and Hartshorn Tree. Mrs. C. better. He had had a difficult journey over Kirkstone, and came home by Threlkeld. We spent a sweet evening. He was better, had altered The Pedlar. We went to bed pretty soon. Mr. Graham said he wished Wm. had been with him the other day—he was riding in a post-chaise and he heard a strange cry that he could not understand, the sound continued, and he called to the chaise driver to stop. It was a little girl that was crying as if her heart would burst. She had got up behind the chaise, and her cloak had been caught by the wheel, and was jammed in, and it hung there. She was crying after it, poor thing. Mr. Graham took her into the chaise, and her cloak was released from the wheel, but the child's misery did not cease, for her cloak was torn to rags; it had been a miserable cloak before, but she had no other, and it was the greatest sorrow that could befall her. Her name was Alice Fell.[1] She had no parents, and belonged to the next town. At the next town, Mr. G. left money with some respectable people in the town, to buy her a new cloak.
Wednesday, 17th.—A miserable nasty snowy morning. We did not walk, but the old man from the hill brought us a short letter from Mary H. I copied the second part of Peter Bell. . . .
Thursday, 18th.—A foggy morning. I copied new part of Peter Bell in W.'s absence, and began a letter to Coleridge. Wm. came in with a letter from Coleridge.
- ↑ See the poem Alice Fell, in the "Poetical Works," vol. ii. p. 273.—Ed.
