Ward describes
so sympathetically, with fitting dignity and truth of style, has
accompanied the author throughout; no less plain, perhaps more
pleasing to some readers, is the quiet humour which never fails her,
and tests, while it relieves, the sincerity of her more serious
thinking:--
"At last Mrs. Darcy fluttered off, only, however, to come hurrying
back with little, short, [61] scudding steps, to implore them all to
come to tea with her as soon as possible in the garden that was her
special hobby, and in her last new summer-house.
"'I build two or three every summer,' she said; 'now there are
twenty-one! Roger laughs at me,' and there was a momentary
bitterness in the little eerie face; 'but how can one live without
hobbies? That's one--then I've two more. My album--oh, you will all
write in my album, won't you? When I was young--when I was Maid of
Honour'--and she drew herself up slightly--'everybody had albums.
Even the dear Queen herself! I remember how she made M. Guizot write
in it; something quite stupid, after all. Those hobbies--the garden
and the album--are quite harmless, aren't they? They hurt nobody, do
they?' Her voice dropped a little, with a pathetic expostulating
intonation in it, as of one accustomed to be rebuked.
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