What did he mean? He meant nothing, it appeared, since he followed up his remarks by opening a parcel which he had brought down stairs in his hand, and from which he took several little morocco boxes, of shape and appearance calculated to make the hearts of women—or at least such hearts of women as Mr. Dirom understood—beat high. They were some “little presents” which he had brought to his family. He had a way of doing it—and “for choice,” as he said, he preferred diamonds.
“They always fetch their price, and they are very portable. Even in a woman’s useless pocket, or in her bag or reticule, or whatever you call it, she might carry a little fortune, and no one ever be the wiser,” Mr. Dirom said.
“When one has diamonds,” said Phyllis, “one wishes everybody to be the wiser, papa; we don’t get them to conceal them, do we, Dor? Do you think it will be too much to wear that pendant to-morrow—in daylight? Well, it is a little ostentatious.”
“And you are rather too young for diamonds, Phyll—if your papa was not so good to you,” said Mrs. Dirom in her uncertain voice.
“She’s jealous, girls,” said her husband, “though hers are the best. Young! nobody is ever too young; take the good of everything while you have it, and as long as you have it, that’s my philosophy. And look here, there’s the sun shining—I shouldn’t be surprised if, after all, to-morrow you were to have a fine day.”
They had a fine day, and the party was very successful. Doris had carried out her idea about the music on the opposite bank, and it was very effective. The guests took up this phrase from the sisters, who asked, “Was it not very effective?” with ingenuous delight in their own success.
It was no common band from the neighbourhood, nor even a party of wandering Germans, but a carefully selected company of minstrels brought from London at an enormous cost: and while half the county walked about upon the tolerably dry lawn, or inspected the house and all the new and elegant articles of art-furniture which the Diroms had brought, the trembling melody of the violins quivered through the air, and the wind instruments sighed and shouted through all the echoes of the Dene. The whole scene was highly effective, and all the actors in it looking and smiling their best.
The Marquis kindly paid Mr. Dirom a compliment on his “splendid hospitality,” and the eloquent Americans who made pilgrimages to Adam Fleming’s grave, and repeated tenderly his adjuration to “Helen fair, beyond compare,” regarded everything, except Mr. Dirom in his white waistcoat, with that mixture of veneration and condescension which inspires the transatlantic bosom amid the immemorial scenery of old England.
“Don’t you feel the spell coming over you, don’t you feel the mosses growing?” they cried. “See, this is English dust and damp—the ethereal mould which comes over your very hands, as dear John Burroughs says. Presently, if you don’t wash ’em, little plants will begin to grow all along your line of life. Wonderful English country—mother of the ages!”
This was what the American guests said to each other. It was the Miss Dempsters, to whom Americans were as the South Sea Islanders, and who were anxious to observe the customs and manners of the unknown race, before whom these poetical exclamations were made.