All that little
language of toyshop platonics had become a natural form of speech with
these two, bred and educated in the Marais, while it was still the select
and aristocratic quarter of Paris.
To-day Hyacinth and her old playfellow had been chattering like children,
or birds in an aviary, and with little more sense in their conversation;
but at this talk of the Church's ban, Hyacinth stopped in her prattle and
was almost serious.
"I sometimes think we shall have bad luck in this house," she said, "or
that we shall see the ghosts of the wicked monks who were turned out to
make room for Fareham's great-grandfather."
"Tush, child! what do you know of their wickedness, after a century?"
"They were very wicked, I believe, for it was one of those quiet little
monasteries where the monks could do all manner of evil things, and raise
the devil, if they liked, without anybody knowing. And when Henry the
Eighth sent his Commissioners, they were taken by surprise; and the altar
at which they worshipped Beelzebub was found in a side chapel, and a
wax figure of the King stuck with arrows, like St. Sebastian. The Abbot
pretended it _was_ St. Sebastian; but nobody believed him.
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