They did not forget the friends who had dined and mounted them, provided shooting and hunting parties, thought nothing too good for them; and invitations flowed into the Hotel Cecil for garden parties, dances, dinners—in fact, all the gaieties of the season.
And what a season it was! ‘Oh to be in England, now that April’s here!’ For the nonce it was a fine, warm, even dry summer, which enhanced the green glory of the century-old oaks, the ‘immemorial elms,’ and the various flowers of the great parks and also of the natural woodland. What joy it was to these young people to wander with their brothers along the ‘leafy lanes, where the trees met overhead, when the merry brooks ran clear and gay’! To note, lying underneath the aged oaks, the skylark rising from the field, and pealing his matin song of gladness.
‘Hark, hark! the lark at heaven’s gate sings,
And Phœbus ’gins arise,
His steeds to water at those springs
On chaliced flowers that lies;
And winking Mary-buds begin
To ope their golden eyes:
With everything that pretty is,
My lady sweet, arise!’