* * * * *
Our guests were downstairs when I came in again, and talking very merrily to my Cousin Dorothy, who was as much at her ease as last night. The Duke sneezed once or twice.
"You have taken a cold, sir," said Dolly.
"It was in a good cause," he said; and sneezed again.
"Salute," said I.
He gave me a quick look, astonished, I suppose, that a rustic should know the Italian ways.
"Grazie," said he, smiling. "You have been in Italy, Mr. Mallock?"
"Oh! I have been everywhere," I said, with a foolish idea of making him respect me.
* * * * *
When they rode away at last, we all stood at the gate to watch them go. The storm had cleared away wonderfully; and the air was fresh and summerlike, and ten thousand jewels sparkled on the limes. They made a very gallant cavalcade. The horses had recovered from their weariness, for they were finely bred, all five of them; and the Duke's horse especially was full of spirit, and curvetted a little, with pleasure and the strength of our corn, as he went along. The servants' liveries too were gay and pleasant to the eye:—(they were not the Duke's own liveries; for when he went about outside town he used a plainer sort)—and the Duke's dark blue, with his fair curls and his great hat which he waved as he went, and my Lord Essex's spruce figure in his buff, all made a very pretty picture as they went up the village street.