“For twice six hundred years, ’tis said,
Hath rested ’neath yon tomb her head,—
That head which soft reposed of old
On couch of satin and of gold.”
“Dear!” was Phoebe’s comment. “I didn’t know they had satin sofas twelve hundred years ago.”
“’Tis no earthly use reading poetry to you!” exclaimed Rhoda, throwing down the book. “You haven’t one bit of feeling for it, no more than if it were a sermon I was reading! Tie your hood on, and make haste, and we’ll go and see the Maidens.”
Phoebe seemed rather troubled to have annoyed her cousin, though she evidently did not perceive how it had been effected. The girls tied on their hoods, and Rhoda, who was not really ill-natured, soon recovered herself when she got into the fresh air.
“Now, while we are going across the Park,” she said, “I will tell you something about the old gentlewomen. I couldn’t this morning, you know, more than their names, because there was Madam listening. But now, hark! Mrs Dolly Jennings—the one who came in first, you know, and sat over against Lady Betty—I don’t know what kin she is, but there is some kin between her and the Duchess of Marlborough. She is the oldest of the Maidens, and the best one to tell a story—except she falls to preaching, and then ’tis tiresome. Do you like sermons, Phoebe?”
“It all depends who preaches them,” said Phoebe.
“Well, of course it does,” said Rhoda. “I don’t like anyone but Dr Harris—he has such white hands!”
“He does not preach about them, does he?” said Phoebe, apparently puzzled as to the connection.
“Oh, he nourishes them about, and discovers so many elegancies!” answered Rhoda.
“But how does that make him preach better?”