Beauclerc half smiled and answered—“You know you used to tell me that you hated long discussions on words and nice distinctions.”
“Well, well, but let me have the nice distinction now.”
“Between love and friendship, then, there is a vast difference in what one wishes for in a woman’s face; there are, ‘faces which pale passion loves.’”
“To the right, turn,” the general’s voice far behind was heard to say.
To the right they turned, into a glade of the park, which opened to a favourite view of the general’s, to which Cecilia knew that all attention must be paid. He came up, and they proceeded through a wood which had been planted by his father, and which seemed destined to stand for ever secure from sacrilegious axe. The road led them next into a village, one of the prettiest of that sort of scattered English villages, where each habitation seems to have been suited to the fancy as well as to the convenience of each proprietor; giving an idea at once of comfort and liberty, such as can be seen only in England. Happy England, how blest, would she but know her bliss!
This village was inhabited by the general’s tenants. His countenance brightened and expanded, as did theirs, whenever he came amongst them; he saw them happy, and they knew that they owed their happiness in just proportion to their landlord and themselves; therefore there was a comfortable mixture in their feelings of gratitude and self-respect. Some old people who were sitting on the stone benches, sunning themselves at their doors, rose as he passed, cap in hand, with cordial greeting. The oldest man, the father of the village, forgot his crutch as he came forward to see his landlord’s bride, and to give him joy. At every house where they stopped, out came husband, wife, and children, even “wee toddling things;” one of these, while the general was speaking to its mother, made its way frightfully close to his horse’s heels: Helen saw it, and called to the mother. The general, turning and leaning back on his horse, said to the bold little urchin as the mother snatched him up, “My boy, as long as you live never again go behind a horse’s heels.”
“And remember, it was general Clarendon gave you this advice,” added Beauclerc, and turning to Lady Cecilia—“‘Et souvenez vous que c’est Maréchal Turenne qui vous l’a dit.’”
While the general searched for that English memento, six-pence, Lady Cecilia repeated, “Marshal Turenne! I do not understand.”
“Yes, if you recollect,” said Helen, “you do.”
“I dare say I know, but I don’t remember,” said Cecilia. “It was only,” said Helen, “that the same thing had happened to Marshal Turenne, that he gave the same advice to a little child.”