There was a great croquet-party one morning at Brentham. Some neighbors had been invited who loved the sport. Mr. Blenkinsop a grave young gentleman, whose countenance never relaxed while he played, and who was understood to give his mind entirely up to croquet. He was the owner of the largest estate in the county, and it was thought would have very much liked to have allied himself with one of the young ladies of the house of Brentham; but these flowers were always plucked so quickly, that his relations with the distinguished circle never grew more intimate than croquet. He drove over with some fine horses, and several cases and bags containing instruments and weapons for the fray. His sister came with him, who had forty thousand pounds, but, they said, in some mysterious manner dependent on his consent to her marriage; and it was added that Mr. Blenkinsop would not allow his sister to marry because he would miss her so much in his favorite pastime. There were some other morning visitors, and one or two young curates in cassocks.
It seemed to Lothair a game of great deliberation and of more interest than gayety, though sometimes a cordial cheer, and sometimes a ringing laugh of amiable derision, notified a signal triumph or a disastrous failure. But the scene was brilliant: a marvellous lawn, the duchess’s Turkish tent with its rich hangings, and the players themselves, the prettiest of all the spectacle, with their coquettish hats, and their half-veiled and half-revealed under-raiment scarlet and silver, or blue and gold, made up a sparkling and modish scene.
Lothair, who had left the players for a while, and was regaining the lawn, met the duchess.
“Your grace is not going to leave us, I hope?” he said, rather anxiously.
“For a moment. I have long promised to visit the new dairy; and I think this a good opportunity.”
“I wish I might be your companion,” said Lothair; and, invited, he was by her grace’s side.
They turned into a winding walk of thick and fragrant shrubs, and, after a while, they approached a dell, surrounded with high trees that environed it with perpetual shade; in the centre of the dell was apparently a Gothic shrine, fair in design and finished in execution, and this was the duchess’s new dairy. A pretty sight is a first-rate dairy, with its flooring of fanciful tiles, and its cool and shrouded chambers, its stained windows and its marble slabs, and porcelain pans of cream, and plenteous platters of fantastically-formed butter.
“Mrs. Woods and her dairy-maids look like a Dutch picture,” said the duchess. “Were you ever in Holland?”
“I have never been anywhere,” said Lothair.
“You should travel,” said the duchess.