The city people copy
everything that their superiors wear or do."
"Even to their morals," said Denzil. "'Twere happy if the so-called
superiors would remember that, and upon what a fertile ground they sow
the seed of new vices. It is like the importation of a new weed or a new
insect, which, beginning with an accident, may end in ruined crops and a
country's famine."
Without deliberate disobedience to her husband, Lady Fareham made the best
use of her time during his absence in Paris. The public theatres had not
yet re-opened after the horror of the plague. Whitehall was a desert, the
King and his chief following being at Tunbridge. It was the dullest season
of the year, and the recrudescence of the contagion in the low-lying towns
along the Thames--Deptford, Greenwich, and the neighbourhood--together with
some isolated cases in London, made people more serious than usual, despite
of the so-called victory over the Dutch, which, although a mixed benefit,
was celebrated piously by a day of General Thanksgiving.
Hyacinth, disgusted at the dulness of the town, was for ordering her
coaches and retiring to Chilton.
"It is mortal dull at the Abbey," she said, "but at least we have the
hawks, and breezy hills to ride over, instead of this sickly city
atmosphere, which to my nostrils smells of the pestilence.
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