looked in at the conservatories, he took a bunch of grapes if
it pleased him, or a bouquet of flowers; he actually stepped indoors
occasionally and sat down on the carved old chairs, or pottered about
the picture gallery. He had a private key to the nail-studded door in
the wall by the Abbey church, and he looked upon that key very much as
if it had been the key of Paradise.

When Grandfather Iden stood on the lawn at Pamment House he was the
proudest and happiest man in what they sarcastically call "God's
creation."

He was a peer at such moments; a grandee--the grandee who can wear his
hat or sit down (which is it? it is most important to be accurate) in
the presence of his deity, I mean his sovereign; he could actually step
on the same sward pressed by the holy toes of the Pamments.

In justice to him it must be said that he was most careful not to
obtrude himself into the sight of their sacred majesties. If they were
at home he rarely went in, if he did he crept round unfrequented paths,
the byeways of the gardens, and hid himself under the fig trees, as it
were. But if by chance a Pamment did light upon him, it was noteworthy
that he was literally dandled and fondled like an infant, begged to come
in, and take wine, and so so, and so so.

In justice to old Iden let it be known that he was most careful not to
obtrude himself; he hid himself under the fig trees.

Hardly credible is it? that a man of ninety years--a man of no common
intelligence--a man of books, and coins, and antiquities, should, in
this nineteenth century, bend his aged knees in such a worship.
Incredible as it may seem it is certainly true.

Such loyalty in others of old time, remember, seems very beautiful when
we read of the devotion that was shown towards Charles Stuart.

With all his heart and soul he worshipped the very ground the Pamments
trod on. He loved to see them in the Abbey church; when they were at
home he never failed to attend service, rain, snow, thunder, ninety
years notwithstanding, he always attended that he might bow his
venerable head to them as they swept up the aisle, receiving the
faintest, yet most gracious, smile of recognition in return.

He was quite happy in his pew if he could see them at their carved desks
in the chancel; the organ sounded very beautiful then; the light came
sweetly through the painted windows; a sanctity and heavenly presence
was diffused around.

Rebellious Amaryllis knew all this, and ha