"May her sweet daughter Katharine be more happy—more fortunate!"
CHAPTER CCXXVI.
THE MARQUIS OF HOLMESFORD.
It was eleven o'clock on the following day, when the Marquis of Holmesford rose from the arms of one of the houris who formed his harem.
He thrust his feet into a pair of red morocco slippers, put on an elegant dressing-gown of gay-coloured silk, and passed from the room of his charmer to his own chamber.
There he entered a bath of warm milk; and, while luxuriating in the tepid fluid which imparted temporary vigour to a frame enfeebled by age and dissipation, he partook of a bowl of the richest French soup, called consommée, which his valet presented on a massive silver salver.
Having finished a broth that was well calculated to replenish the juices of his wasting frame, the hoary voluptuary left the bath, which was immediately wheeled into an adjacent chamber.
Every morning was a certain quantity, consisting of many gallons, of new milk supplied for the use of the Marquis of Holmesford; and when it had served him for one bath, it became the perquisite of his valet.
And what did this domestic do with it? Had he possessed hogs, he would not have given to those unclean beasts the fluid which had washed off all the impurities of his master's person:—no—he would not have allowed the very pigs to partake of the milk with which the disgusting exudations of the old voluptuary's body had commingled!
But he contracted with a milk-man whose "walk" was in a very poor neighbourhood; and that milk-man paid the valet a certain sum daily for the perquisite.
It was then retailed to the poor as the best "country grass-fed milk!"