“Hastings Gray.”
“What! the Hastings Gray who, seventeen or eighteen years ago, made so remarkable a speech at some public meeting (I own I forget where it was), and wrote the political pamphlet which caused so great a sensation!”
“The same man.”
“I remember that he was said to have distinguished himself highly at the university, and that he was much talked of in London, for a few weeks, as a man likely to come into Parliament, and even to make a figure in it. Since then, never having heard more of him, I supposed he was dead. I am glad to learn that he only sleepeth.”
Here we heard behind us the muffled fall of hoofs on the sward; our party was in movement homeward, Lady Gertrude leading the van in her pony chaise. I had to retake my place by her side; Clara and the Librarian followed in a similar vehicle, driven by Henry Thornhill, who had caught none of the great perches; I suspect he had not tried for them. Percival and the Painter rode. The twilight deepened, and soon melted into a starry night, as we went through the shadowy forest-land.
Lady Gertrude talked incessantly and agreeably, but I was a very dull companion, and, being in a musing humour, would much rather have been alone. At length we saw the moon shining on the white walls of the villa. “I fear we have tired you with our childish party of pleasure,” said Lady Gertrude, with a malicious fling at my silence.
“Perhaps I am tired,” I replied, ingenuously. “Pleasures are fatiguing, especially when one is not accustomed to them.”
“Satirist!” said Lady Gertrude. “You come from the brilliant excitement of London, and what may be pleasure to us must be ennui to you.”
“Nay, Lady Gertrude, let me tell you what a very clever and learned man, a Minister of State, said the other day at one of those great public ceremonial receptions which are the customary holidays of a Minister of State. ‘Life,’ said he, pensively, ‘would be tolerably agreeable if it were not for its amusements.’ He spoke of those ‘brilliant excitements,’ as you call them, which form the amusements of capitals. He would not have spoken so of the delight which Man can extract from a holiday with Nature. But tell me, you who have played so considerable a part in the world of fashion, do you prefer the drawing-rooms of London to the log-house by the lake?”
“Why,” said Lady Gertrude, honestly, and with a half-sigh; “I own I should be glad if Percival would consent to spend six months in the year, or even three, in London. However, what he likes I like. Providence has made us women of very pliable materials.”