o pay our
homage to your grace!

The chapel, where you might trace art from the richly Gothic tomb,
designed by some neighbouring abbot, to the last effort of Flaxman;
the riding-house, where, brightly framed, looked down upon you with a
courtly smile the first and gartered duke, who had been Master of the
Horse, were alike visited, and alike admired. They mounted the summit
of the round tower, and looked around upon the broad county, which they
were proud to call their own. Amid innumerable seats, where blazed the
hearths of the best blood of England, they recognised, with delight, the
dome of Dacre and the woods of Dallington. They walked along a terrace
not unworthy of the promenade of a court; they visited the flower
gardens, where the peculiar style of every nation was in turn imitated;
they loitered in the vast conservatories, which were themselves
a palace; they wandered in the wilderness, where the invention of
consummate art presented them with the ideal of nature. In this poetic
solitude, where all was green, and still, and sweet, or where the only
sound was falling water or fluttering birds, the young Duke recurred to
the feelings which, during the last momentous week, had so mastered his
nature, and he longed to wind his arm round the beautiful being without
whom this enchanting domain was a dreary waste.

They assembled in a green retreat, where the energetic Sir Carte had
erected a marquee, and where a collation greeted the eyes of those
who were well prepared for it. Rawdon had also done his duty, and the
guests, who were aware of the sudden manner in which the whole affair
had arisen, wondered at the magic which had produced a result worthy of
a week's preparation. But it is a great thing to be a young Duke. The
pasties, and the venison, and the game, the pines, and the peaches, and
the grapes, the cakes, and the confectionery, and the ices, which proved
that the still-room at Hauteville was not an empty name, were all most
popular. But the wines, they were marvellous! And as the finest cellars
in the country had been ransacked for excellence and variety, it is not
wonderful that their produce obtained a panegyric. There was hock of a
century old, which made all stare, though we, for our part, cannot see,
or rather taste, the beauty of this antiquity. Wine, like woman, in
our opinion, should not be too old, so we raise our altar to the infant
Bacchus; but this is not the creed of the million, nor was it