IV.
MY LADY INGRAM.
"She had the low voice of your English dames,
Unused, it seems, to need rise half a note
To catch attention,—and their quiet mood,
As if they lived too high above the earth
For that to put them out in anything:
So gentle, because verily so proud;
So wary and afraid of hurting you,
By no means that you are not really vile,
But that they would not touch you with their foot
To push you to your place; so self-possessed,
Yet gracious and conciliating, it takes
An effort in their presence to speak truth:
You know the sort of woman,—brilliant stuff,
And out of nature."
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
The Tories were in power in the winter of 1711-12. The Duke of Marlborough's credit at home had long been sinking, and he was now almost at the lowest point in the Queen's favor. On that very New Year's Day of which I have spoken, for the first time in the annals of England, a Ministry had endeavored to swamp the House of Lords by a wholesale creation of Peers. Politically speaking, Squire Passmore was anything but happy, for he was a fervent Whig. He sat in the parlor that morning, inveighing angrily against the Earl of Oxford and all who followed or agreed with him—the Queen herself of course excepted—for the edification of Madam Passmore—who was calmly knotting—Isabella, and Celia.
"'Tis pity, John," said Madam Passmore, quietly, "that you have no Tories to list you."
"I wish I had—the scoundrels!" exclaimed the Squire.
"O Mother!" cried Isabella, rising hurriedly from her seat in the window, "sure here is some visitor of quality. There is a carriage at the front door with arms on the panels."
"What arms?" asked her father.
"I don't understand anything about arms," said Isabella, "and one of the coats I cannot see rightly. The one nearer here is all cut up into little squares, and in one part there is a dog on his hind legs, and in another a pair of yellow balls."
The Squire came to the window to see for himself. "Dog! balls!" cried he. "A lion rampant and bezants—the goose!"