“Yes; sister and I are to live here while my father represents his Majesty beyond seas. I hope you have good stabling and plenty of room. My ponies and Mistress Henriette’s Arab horse will be here to-morrow. I doubt I shall have to build a place for my hawks; but I suppose Sir John will find me a cottage for my Dutch falconer.”
“Lord, how the young master do talk!” exclaimed Reuben, with an admiring grin.
The boy was so rapid in his speech, had such vivacity and courage in his face, such a spring in every movement, as if he had quicksilver in his veins, Reuben thought; but it was only the quicksilver of youth, that Divine ichor which lasts for so brief a season.
“It made me feel twenty years younger only to hear him prattle,” Reuben said afterwards.
Sir John and his daughter had come to meet the children by this time, and there were fond embracings, in the midst of which Henriette withdrew herself from her grandfather’s arms, and retired a couple of paces, in order to drop him the Jennings curtsy, sinking almost to the ground, and then rising from billows of silk, like Venus from the sea, and handing him a letter, with a circular sweep of her arm, learnt in London from her Parisian dancing mistress, an apprentice of St. André’s, not from the shabby little French cut-caper from Oxford.
“My father sends you this letter, sir.”
“Is your father at Chilton?”
“No, sir. He was with us the day before yesterday, to bid us good-bye before he started upon his foreign embassy,” replied Henriette, struggling with her tears, lest she should seem a child, and not the woman of fashion she aspired to be. “He left us early in the afternoon to ride back to London, and he takes barge this afternoon to Gravesend, to embark for Archangel, on his way to Moscow. I doubt you know he is to be his Majesty’s Ambassador at Muscovy?”
“I know nothing but what you told me t’other day, Henriette,” the Knight answered, as they went to the house, where George began to run about on an exploration of corridors, and then escaped to the stables, while Henriette stood in front of the great wood fire, and warmed her hands in a stately manner.
Angela had found no words of welcome for her niece yet. She only hugged and kissed her, and now occupied herself unfastening the child’s hood and cloak. “How your hands shake, auntie. You must be colder than I am; though that leathern coach lets in the wind like a sieve. I suppose my people will know where to dispose themselves?” she added, resuming her grand air.