Читать книгу Memoirs of Miss Sidney Biddulph - Frances Chamberlaine Sheridan - Страница 32

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You cannot expect, in such a house as this is, my dear, that I can be furnished with materials to give you much variety. Indeed these four last days have been so exactly the same in every particular, excepting that the dishes at dinner and supper were changed, that I had resolved to hang up my pen till I quitted Grimston-hall, or at least resign it to Patty, and let her plod on and tell you how the wind blew such a day; what sort of a mantua lady Grimston had on such a day (though by the way it is always the same, always ash-coloured tissue); what the great dog barked at, at such an hour, and what the old parrot said at such a time; the house and the garden I have exhausted my descriptive faculties on already, though, they are neither of them worth describing; and I was beginning to despair of matter to furnish out a quarter of an hour’s entertainment, when the scene began to brighten a little this auspicious day, by the arrival of a coach full of visitors. These were no other than a venerable dean, who is the minister of our parish, his lady and daughter, and a Mr Arnold, a gentleman who is a distant relation of lady Grimston’s. He has a house in this neighbourhood, and is just come to an estate by the death of his elder brother.

This visit has given me hopes that I may now and then have a chance for seeing a human face, besides the antiques of the family, and those which are depicted on the arras. Though not to disparage the people, they were all agreeable enough in their different ways. The old dean is good humoured and polite; I mean the true politeness, that of the heart, which dictates the most obliging things in so frank a manner, that they have not the least appearance of flattery. Being very near sighted, he put on a pair of spectacles to look at me, and turning to Mr Arnold, with a vivacity that would have become five-and-twenty, he repeated

‘With an air and a face,

And a shape and a grace, &c.’

The young man smiled his assent, and my mother looked so delighted, that the good-natured dean’s compliment pleased me for her sake. Lady Grimston, who is passionately fond of musick, has a very pretty organ in one of her chambers; Mr Arnold was requested to give us a lesson on it, which he very readily obliged us with. He plays ravishingly; the creature made me envious, he touched it so admirably. I had taken a sort of dislike to him when he first came in, I cannot tell you why or wherefore; but this accomplishment has reconciled me so to him, that I am half in love with him. I hope we shall see him often; he is really excellent on this instrument, and you know how fond I am of musick.