Vibert burst out laughing. “So the chivalrous Bruce took the dangerous post!” he exclaimed. “Would I not just like to give him a fright!”
“Don’t, oh! don’t play any foolish practical joke!” exclaimed Emmie.
“I’m afraid that it would not answer,” said Vibert, still laughing. “Bruce is a hard-headed chap, who sifts everything to the bottom. He’d be as likely as not to cleave a ghost’s skull with a poker, and I’ve no fancy to try whether he hits as hard with his hand as he yesterday did with his tongue. But let’s talk no more about Bruce. As soon as I’ve finished my breakfast, you and I shall go into the grounds and have a ramble together. You’ve not yet seen the outside of our mansion, for when we arrived here last night you had not enough light to distinguish Aladdin’s palace from a Hottentot kraal.”
The brother and sister soon sauntered out on the terrace on the east side of the house, which was bathed in glowing sunshine. The air was so mild that Emmie had merely thrown a light blue scarf over her head and shoulders as a protection from the breeze; winter wraps would have been oppressive, and she enjoyed the luxury of being able to go out without donning bonnet or gloves. The terrace overlooked the lawn and the garden: the latter had once been fine, and had still a prim grace of its own.
“I rather like this old family mansion,” cried Vibert, glancing up at the building, which had been constructed of dark red brick, with handsome facings of stone. “There is something stately about it, as if it had seen better days, and remembered them still. Myst Court looks something like William and Mary’s part of Hampton Court Palace.”
“Oh, a mere miniature of that grand old building,” said Emmie.
“I can just fancy the kind of people who walked on this terrace when first it was laid out,” continued Vibert. “There were gentlemen in huge, full-bottomed wigs, long coats, embroidered waistcoats and ruffles of old point-lace, with rapiers hanging at their sides. There were ladies like those whom Sir Godfrey Kneller painted, stiff and stately, each smelling a rose which she held in her hand; ladies in hoops, who looked as if they could never dance anything more lively than a minuet de la cour. We seem too modern, Emmie, to match our mansion. Let’s return to the olden times, forget that Queen Anne is dead, and fancy her yet with the sharp-tongued Duchess Sarah playing the game of romantic friendship. Let’s imagine ourselves as we would have appeared some hundred and fifty years ago. I’m a young Tory gallant (of course, I’m a Jacobite at heart, and drink to ‘the king over the water’); Bruce is a decided Whig,—I’m not sure that he is not a Dutchman, and has come over from Holland in the train of the Prince of Orange.”
Emmie laughed at Vibert’s playful fancies, and wondered how her handsome young brother would have looked in a full-bottomed wig.
“Whig and Tory must unite,” she observed, “to get that garden into order. The walks are overrun with shepherd’s purse and chickweed, and the beds seem to grow little but nettles.”
“But these beds were clearly laid out at the time when Dutch taste prevailed,” said Vibert; “it reminds one of the poet’s description,—