There were
moments, indeed, when it was not a palace at all: it was the terrace of
some Tudor house, with stone balls on all the posts, or it was the trim
path of some village church-yard, bordered by yew-trees and by tombstones
with cherubs' heads and hour-glasses. She was the bride of a month, and
this was her first service in England. The people around them figured no
longer as the swell crush of London, but as a respectful, lock-tugging,
courtesy-dropping tenantry who fell off on either side as she passed out
to her carriage on her husband's arm. There were side-long glimpses, too,
of forgeries and murders and lost wills and stolen jewels and people
drowned in wells; in one book there had been a maniac girl shut up in a
room--but she should try to avoid all these superfluities; a duchess in
possession of her senses would be decidedly preferable. A week later and
she was deeper in Burke and Debrett than ever.
"Well, here it is finally--Saltonstall, Scamperdown, Scodd-Paston."
Rosy bent her head and studied the large gilt volume with redoubled
vigor. "It's pretty near the end, after all."
Rosy sat at a desk in a big new granite building to one side of a small
park. Above the window-ledge appeared the tops of trees, the towers and
gables of a pair of churches, the dark and dignified facade of a
club-house, and the various elements that make up one of the half-dozen
local views which bear in any great degree the stamp of civilization.
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