You
Remember My Ancestors Were Brought Up On Kneeling, And Yours On
Curtsying, And It Makes A Great Difference In The Muscles."
Hilda smiled benignantly as she wound the coil of russet hair round
her shapely head.
"He will think whatever you do charming, and
whatever you say brilliant," she said; "that is the advantage in
being an American woman."
Just at this moment Lady Veratrum sent a haughty maid to ask us if
we would meet her under the trees in the park which surrounds the
house. I hailed this as a welcome reprieve to the dreaded function
of tea with the duke, and made up my mind, while descending the
marble staircase, that I would slip away and lose myself
accidentally in the grounds, appearing only in time for the London
train. This happy mode of issue from my difficulties lent a
springiness to my step, as we followed a waxwork footman over the
velvet sward to a nook under a group of copper beeches. But there,
to my dismay, stood a charmingly appointed tea-table glittering with
silver and Royal Worcester, with several liveried servants bringing
cakes and muffins and berries to Lady Veratrum, who sat behind the
steaming urn. I started to retreat, when there appeared, walking
towards us, a simple man, with nothing in the least extraordinary
about him.
"That cannot be the Duke of Cimicifugas," thought I, "a man in a
corduroy jacket, without a sign of a suite; probably it is a
Banished Duke come from the Forest of Arden for a buttered muffin."
But it was the Duke of Cimicifugas, and no other.
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