" He took the thing a little more seriously than he need, was in
danger of labouring it. Melusine turned the talk. He invited them to the
play, as "master of the revels," and walked between them, looking a very
decent figure of a don on a college lawn, substantial, serene, and with an
air of displaying his possessions: _"Parva sed apta mihi; Deus nobis haec
otia fecit!"_ He still possessed the rags of his Latin. "This little bay-
tree will interest you, Miss Percival. It was planted many years ago by
the late Lord Meeke--the uncle of the present peer. We had had some
business relations; they were happily cemented into something more
intimate by this little fellow." He touched it tenderly. "A sturdy growth!
Like my affection for my noble but departed friend. Dear me! _Labuntur
anni_, indeed!" His fig tree, which some one else had planted, his
laburnum--a slip from one at Rickmansworth, the seat of the late Lord
Mayor Burgess--a catalpa seedling from Panshanger, which the late Lady
Cowper did him the honour to present with her own hands: as Sanchia said
afterwards to Melot, his garden was rather like a cemetery of dead
friendships....
Then they sat to witness the revels.
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