CHAPTER XXX.
"O, why should Heaven smile
On deeds of darkness—plots of sin and crime?
I cannot tell thee why,
But this I know, she often doeth so."
While the bright summer passed over Wimbledon, matters apparently moved on as usual in the quiet little village.
The Woman's Rights Reform lagged somewhat with the thermometer at eighty, as is frequently the case with benevolent organizations; perhaps because their zealous warmth, when increased by a high-temperatured atmosphere, mounts to spirits' boil and evaporates.
Mrs. Pimble and Mrs. Lawson sat on their respective piazzas, in nankin pants and open waistcoats, and flapped great peacocks' tails to and fro, to cool their feverish, perspiring brows.
Mr. Pimble, in his wife's sun-bonnet, clappered his heelless slippers at mid-day along the garden paths, in the vain hope of warming his laggard blood to a brisker flow. Mrs. Dr. Simcoe was still harassed by those snarling, ill-tempered brats, "Simcoe's children," who seemed contagiously disposed to all the "ills which flesh is heir to," as if to test the skill and try the patience of the lady M. D.
One of the most brilliant moons that ever showered its silvery light over a flower-covered earth, rode in the liquid zenith of a summer heaven. The splendid grounds of Major Howard's princely mansion never slept, in their luxuriant beauty, beneath a lovelier sky. Thick trailed the heavy vines in their leafy exuberance of foliage over arbors and green-houses. Whole parterres of brilliant flowers loaded the air with fragrance, and nightingales sang among the boughs of the lindens that waved against the wrought-iron palings of the terraces.