bed. The
_battue_, however, in time, called forth its band, and then one by one,
or two by two, or sometimes even three, leaning on each other's arms
and smiling in each other's faces, the ladies dropped into the
breakfast-room at Castle Dacre. There, until two o'clock, a lounging
meal might always be obtained, but generally by twelve the coast was
clear; for our party were a natural race of beings, and would have
blushed if flaming noon had caught them napping in their easy couches.
Our bright bird, May Dacre, too, rose from her bower, full of the memory
of the sweetest dreams, and fresh as lilies ere they kiss the sun.

She bends before her ivory crucifix, and gazes on her blessed mother's
face, where the sweet Florentine had tinged with light a countenance

Too fair for worship, too divine for love!

And innocence has prayed for fresh support, and young devotion told her
holy beads. She rises with an eye of mellowed light, and her soft cheek
is tinted with the flush that comes from prayer. Guard over her, ye
angels! wheresoe'er and whatsoe'er ye are! For she shall be your meet
companion in an after-day. 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. He did his friend Dacre the justice to suppose that he
was a victim to his barbarous guests; but for the rest of the galloping
crew, who rode and shot all day, and in t