University of Virginia Library

2. CHAP. II.

The morning of the fifteenth of May seemed to
have been appointed by all the flowers as a jubilee
of perfume and bloom. The birds had been invited
and sang in the summer with a welcome as fullthroated
as a prima donna singing down the tenor
in a duet; the most laggard buds turned out their
hearts to the sunshine, and promised leaves on the
morrow, and that portion of London that had been
invited to Lady Roseberry's fête, thought it a very
fine day! That portion which was not, wondered
how people would go sweltering about in such a
glare for a cold dinner!

At about half-past two, a very elegant dark green
cab without a crest, and with a servant in whose
slight figure and plain blue livery there was not a
fault, whirled out at the gate of the Regent's Park,
and took its way up the well-watered road leading
to Hampstead. The gentleman whom it passed or
met turned to admire the performance of the dark
gray horse, and the ladies looked after the cab as if
they could see the handsome occupant once more
through its leather back. Whether by conspiracy

among the coach-makers, or by an aristocracy of
taste, the degree of elegance in a turn-out attained
by the cab just described, is usually confined to the
acquaintances of Lady—; that list being understood
to enumerate all “the nice young men” of the
West end, beside the guardsmen. (The ton of the
latter, in all matters that affect the style of the
regiment, is looked after by the club and the colonel.)
The junior Firkins seemed an exception to this
exclusive rule. No “nice man” could come from
Lothbury, and he did not visit Lady—; but his
horse was faultless, and when he turned into the
gate of Rose-Eden, the policeman at the porter's
lodge, though he did not know him, thought it
unnecessary to ask for his name. Away he spattered
up the hilly avenue, and giving the reins to
his groom at the end of a green arbour leading to
the reception-lawn, he walked in and made his bow
to Lady Roseberry, who remarked, “How very
handsome! Who can he be?” and the junior partner
walked on and disappeared down an avenue of
laburnums.

Ah! but Rose-Eden looked a Paradise that day!
Hundreds had passed across the close-shaven lawn,
with a bow to the lady-mistress of this fair abode.
Yet the grounds were still private enough for Milton's
pair, so lost were they in the green labyrinths of hill
and dale. Some had descended through heavily-shaded

paths to a fancy-dairy, built over a fountain
in the bottom of a cool dell; and here, amid her
milk-pans of old and costly china, the prettiest maid
in the country round pattered about upon a floor of
Dutch tiles, and served her visiters with creams and
ices; already, as it were, adapted to fashionable
comprehension. Some had strayed to the ornamental
cottages in the skirts of the flower-garden—
poetical abodes, built from a picturesque drawing,
with imitation roughness; thatch, lattice-window,
and low paling, all complete; and inhabited by super-annuated
dependants of Lord Roseberry, whose only
duties were to look like patriarchs, and give tea and
new cream-cheese to visiters on fête-days. Some
had gone to see the silver and gold pheasants in
their wire-houses—stately aristocrats of the game
tribe, who carry their finely-pencilled feathers like
“Marmalct Madarus,” strutting in hoop and farthingale.
Some had gone to the kennels, to see setters
and pointers, hounds and terriers, lodged like gentlemen,
each breed in its own apartment; the puppies,
as elsewhere, treated with most attention.
Some were in the flower-garden, some in the green-houses,
some in the graperies, aviaries, and grottoes;
and at the side of a bright sparkling fountain, in the
recesses of a fir-grove, with her foot upon its marble
lip, and one hand on the shoulder of a small Cupid
who archly made a drinking-cup of his wing, and
caught the bright water as it fell, stood Lady Imogen
Ravelgold, the loveliest girl of nineteen that prayed
night and morning within the parish of May Fair,
listening to very passionate language from the young
banker of Lothbury.

A bugle on the lawn rang a recall. From every
alley, and by every path, poured in the gay multitude,
and the smooth sward looked like a plateau of
animated flowers, waked by magic from a broidery
on green velvet. Ah! the beautiful demi-toilettes!
—so difficult to attain, yet, when attained, the dress
most modest, most captivating, most worthy the
divine grace of woman. Those airy hats, sheltering
from the sun, yet not enviously concealing a
feature or a ringlet that a painter would draw for
his exhibition picture! Those summery and shapely
robes, covering the person more to show its
outline better, and provoke more the worship, which,
like all worship, is made more adoring by mystery!
Those complexions which but betray their transparency
in the sun: lips in which the blood is translucent
when between you and the light: cheeks finer-grained
than alabaster, yet as cool in their virgin purity as
a tint in the dark corner of a Ruysdael: the human
race was at less perfection in Athens in the days of
Lais—in Egypt in the days of Cleopatra, than that
day on the lawn of Rose-Eden.

Cart-loads of ribands, of every gay colour, had
been laced through the trees in all directions; and
amid every variety of foliage, and every shade of
green, the tulip-tints shone vivid and brilliant, like
an American forest after the first frost. From the
left edge of the lawn, the ground suddenly sunk into
a dell, shaped like an amphitheatre, with a level
platform at its bottom, and all around, above and
below, thickened a shady wood. The music of a
delicious band stole up from the recesses of a grove,
draped as an orchestra and green-room on the lower
side, and while the audience disposed themselves in
the shade of the upper grove, a company of players
and dancing-girls commenced their theatricals.—
Imogen Ravelgold, who was separated, by a pine
tree only, from the junior partner, could scarce tell
you, when it was finished, what was the plot of the
play.

The recall-bugle sounded again, and the band
wound away from the lawn, playing a gay march.
Followed lady Roseberry and her suite of gentlemen,
followed dames and their daughters, followed all
who wished to see the flight of my lord's falcons.
By a narrow path and a wicket-gate, the long music-guided
train stole out upon an open hill-side, looking
down on a verdant and spreading meadow. The
band played at a short distance behind the gay
groups of spectators, and it was a pretty picture to

look down upon the splendidly-dressed falconer and
his men, holding their fierce birds upon their wrists,
in their hoods and jesses, a foreground of old chivalry
and romance; while far beyond extended, like a sea
over the horizon, the smoke-clad pinnacles of busy
and every-day London. There are such contrasts
of the eyes of the rich!

The scarlet hood was taken from the trustiest
falcon, and a dove, confined, at first, with a string,
was thrown up, and brought back, to excite his
attention. As he fixed his eye upon him, the frightened
victim was let loose, and the falcon flung off;
away skimmed the dove in a low flight over the
meadow, and up to the very zenith, in circles of
amazing swiftness and power, sped the exulting
falcon, apparently forgetful of his prey, and bound
for the eye of the sun with his strong wings and his
liberty. The falconer's whistle and cry were heard;
the dove circled round the edge of the meadow in his
wavy flight; and down, with the speed of lightning,
shot the falcon, striking his prey dead to the earth
before the eye could settle on his form. As the
proud bird stood upon his victim, looking around
with a lifted crest and fierce eye, Lady Imogen Ravengold
heard, in a voice of which her heart knew
the musick, “They who soar highest strike surest;
the dove lies in the falcon's bosom.”