If I get back
to my old meads and woods and the house where I was born, I will sit
quietly down in the chimney corner, and take to cattle-breeding, and a pack
of harriers, for the diversion of my declining years. And when my Angela
can make up her mind to leave her good aunt she shall keep house for me."
"I should love to be your housekeeper, dearest father. If it please Heaven
to restore my aunt to health and strength, I will go to you with a heart
full of joy," said the girl, hanging caressingly upon the old cavalier's
shoulder.
Hyacinth flitted about the room with a swift, birdlike motion, looking at
the sacred images and prints, the _tableau_ over the mantelpiece, which
told, with much flourish of penmanship, the progress of the convent pupils
in learning and domestic virtues.
"What a humdrum, dismal room!" she cried. "You should see our convent
parlours in Paris. At the Carmelites, in the Rue Saint Jacques, _par
exemple_, the Queen-mother's favourite convent, and at Chaillot, the house
founded by Queen Henrietta--such pictures, and ornaments, and embroidered
hangings, and tapestries worked by devotees. This room of yours, sister,
stinks of poverty, as your Flemish streets stink of garlic and cabbage.
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