top-speed or dallying with obscure stations not alighted at
apparently, have had it pointed out to them as beheld dimly for a
privileged instant before they sink back behind crackling barrier of
instructive paper with a "Thank you, Sir," or "Madam," as the case
may be. Guide-books praise it. I conceive they shall be studied for
a cock-shy of rainbow epithets slashed in at the target of Landed
Gentry, premonitorily. The tintinnabulation's enough. Periodical
footings of Clashthoughts into Mayfair or the Tyrol, signalled by the
slide from its mast of a crested index of Aeolian caprice, blazon of
their presence, give the curious a right to spin through the halls
and galleries under a cackle of housekeeper guideship--scramble for a
chuck of the dainties, dog fashion. There is something to be said for
the rope's twist. Wisdom skips.

It is recorded that the goblins of this same Lady Wisdom were all agog
one Christmas morning between the doors of the house and the village
church, which crouches on the outskirt of the park, with something of
a lodge in its look, you might say, more than of celestial twinkles,
even with Christmas hoar-frost bleaching the grey of it in sunlight,
as one sees imaged on seasonable missives for amity in the trays
marked "sixpence and upwards," here and there, on the counters of
barter.

Be sure these goblins made obeisance to Sir Peter Clashthought, as he
passed by, starched beacon of squirearchy, wife on arm, sons to heel.
After him, certain members of the household--rose-chapped males and
females, bearing books of worship. The pack of goblins glance up
the drive with nudging elbows and whisperings of "Where is daughter
Euphemia? Where Sir Rebus, her affianced?"

Off they scamper for a peep through the windows of the house. They
throng the sill of the library, ears acock and eyelids twittering
admiration of a prospect. Euphemia was in view of them--essence of
her. Sir Rebus was at her side. Nothing slips the goblins.

"Nymph in the Heavy Dragoons" was Mrs. Cryptic-Sparkler's famous
definition of her. The County took it for final--an uncut gem with
a fleck in the heart of it. Euphemia condoned the imagery. She had
breadth. Heels that spread ample curves over the ground she stood on,
and hands that might floor you with a clench of them, were hers. Grey
eyes looked out lucid and fearless under swelling temples that were
lost in a ruffling copse of hair. Her nose was virginal, with hints of
the Ir