Page:Lesbia Newman - Dalton - 1889.djvu/322

 course. It needs not to be argued. But to go marring the beauty of dear old associations, taking the comfort and geniality out of social life, spoiling whatever there is of poetry in the changing seasons, and in their effects upon vegetable and animal nature, by such a peddling, puddling, pettifogging, basimecu alteration as that perpetrated by those geese the medival papists, and afterwards copied here, from ape-like mimicry and weakness—really, I cannot characterise it in any words fit to be heard in this assembly. The Russians half-barbarous, say we? They may be, but at any rate they have managed to keep sane upon a point on which the world in general has gone crazy.’

‘Well, Mr Bristley, well! I hope you feel better,’ laughed Friga, taking his hands in her own as she faced him closely. ‘Come here, do, somebody with a broom—you, Mr Lockstable—and sweep up the shreds of the new style.’

‘Not I; let ’em be,’ answered Athelstan. ‘For my part, I quite agree with Bristley. The mischief that’s been done to all that’s jolly in life by the change of style, is enough to make a goblin demd’s particular hair to stand on end, like bristles on the faithful porcupine, as Hamlet says.’

‘You’re a great Shaksperian, Lockstable,’ laughed the vicar, ‘only I hope you don’t mean to be personal?’

Lesbia, who had been dancing most of the evening, now wished for a little quiet chat with Friga about the latter’s impending matriculation at Ousebridge, but she met her retiring with Letitia to a quiet part of the garden, where the two remained until Lady Humnoddie’s carriage was sent for.

As the party broke up, old Mr Leckinsopp came forward to say to Lesbia,—

‘I am sorry to have seemed put out just now, but if the truth must be told, your expletive was only a pretext. The real cause of my ill-humour was that I have had a violent