Bella now wound both arms firmly in her cousin's, and clung to him.
"Think of it, I never rode before, never! All the children on the block have, though. Isn't it perfectly delightful, Cousin Antony? I wish your legs weren't so long."
"Cousin Antony," asked little Gardiner, "couldn't we go over to the animals and see the seals fall off and dwown themselves?"
They saw the lion in his lair and the "tiger, tiger burning bright," and the shining, slippery seals, and they made an absorbed group at the nettings where Antony discoursed about the animals as he discoursed about art, and Spartacus talked to them about the wild beast show in Cæsar's arena. His audience shivered at his side.
They walked up the big driveway, and Fairfax saw for the first time the Mall, and observed that the earth was turned up round a square some twelve feet by twelve. He half heard the children at his side; his eyes were fastened on the excavation for the pedestal of the Sphinx; the stone base would soon be raised there, and then his beasts would be poised.
"Let's walk over to the Mall, children."
Along the walk the small goat carriages were drawn
up with their teams; little landaus, fairy-like for small folk to drive in. Fairfax stood before the cavity in the earth and the scaffolding left by the workmen. He was conscious of his little friends at length by the dragging on his arms of their too affectionate weight. "Cousin Antony."
Fairfax waved to the vacant spot. "Oh, Egypt, Egypt," he began, in his "recitation voice," a voice that promised treats at home, but that palled in the sunny open, with goat rides in the fore-ground.
"Out of the soft, smooth coral of thy sands,
Out of thy Nilus tide, out of thy heart,
Such dreams have come, such mighty splendours——"