Mazarine hoods
are as ancient as the pyramids, Lewin. Pr'ythee show us something newer."
It was late in the evening when the two coaches left the Manor gate.
Hyacinth had been in no haste to return to the Abbey. There was nobody
there who wanted her, she protested, and there would be a moon after nine
o'clock, and she had servants enough to take care of her on the road; so
Mrs. Lewin and her ladyship's woman were entertained in the steward's
room, where Reuben held forth upon the splendour that had prevailed in his
master's house before the troubles--and where the mantua-maker ate and
drank all she could get, and dozed and yawned through the old man's
reminiscences.
The afternoon was spent more pleasantly by the quality, who sat about in
the sunny garden, or sauntered by the fish pond and fed the carp--and took
a dish of the Indian drink which the sisters loved, in the pergola at the
end of the grass walk.
Hyacinth now affected a passion for the country, and quoted the late Mr.
Cowley in praise of rusticity.
"Oh, how delicious is this woodland valley," she cried.
"'Here let me, careless and unthoughtful lying,
Hear the soft winds, above me plying,
With all their wanton boughs dispute.
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