Then love your gentle friend, this sinless
child of clay!
The morning passed as mornings ever pass where twenty women, for the
most part pretty, are met together. Some read, some drew, some worked,
all talked. Some wandered in the library, and wondered why such great
books were written. One sketched a favourite hero in the picture
gallery, a Dacre, who had saved the State or Church, had fought at
Cressy, or flourished at Windsor: another picked a flower out of the
conservatory, and painted its powdered petals. Here, a purse, half-made,
promised, when finished quite, to make some hero happy. Then there was
chat about the latest fashions, caps and bonnets, _seduisantes_, and
sleeves. As the day grew' old, some rode, some walked, some drove. A
pony-chair was Lady Faulconcourt's delight, whose arm was roundly turned
and graced the whip; while, on the other hand, Lady St. Jerome rather
loved to try the paces of an ambling nag, because her figure was of the
sublime; and she looked not unlike an Amazonian queen, particularly when
Lord Mildmay was her Theseus.
He was the most consummate, polished gentleman that ever issued from the
court of France.
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