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His Grace's couriers went back and forth to France, and upon his estates the people prepared their rejoicings for the marriage-day, and never had Camylott been so heavenly fair as on the day when the bells rang out once more, and the villagers stood along the roadside and at their cottage doors, courtesying and throwing up hats and calling down God's blessings on the new-wed pair, as the coach passed by, and his Grace, holding his lady's hand, showed her to his people, seeming to give her and her loveliness to them as they bowed and smiled together she almost with joyful tears in her sweet eyes.
I think it was about a fortnight after this conversation that I was one night sitting in the great drawing-room window, when on a sudden, on the grass before me stood an odd figure a very tall woman in grey draperies, courtesying rather fantastically, smiling very unpleasantly on me, and gabbling and cackling shrilly I could not distinctly hear what and gesticulating oddly with her long arms and hands.
Behind her, courtesying and smiling to the guests as they approached, stood two well-grown unmistakably English girls, their dresses ornamented with cherry-coloured ribbons, just then in fashion: the eldest, Catherine, or Kate, as she was called, a brunette, tall and slight, with a somewhat grave and retiring manner, and far more refined than her rosy-cheeked, merry-looking younger sister Polly, who gave promise of some day growing into the goodly proportions of her mother.
A single glance did she bestow upon the travellers, while she acknowledged, by a slight courtesy, the respectful bow which they made her. They drew up their horses as with mutual instinct, but she passed them quickly, courtesying a second time as she did so, and, in another moment a turn of the road concealed her from the eyes of the travellers.
She proceeded to courtesy to the President's wife and to the row of wives of members of the Cabinet who were assisting. Before she could adequately observe them, she found herself beyond and a part once more of a heterogeneous crush, the current of which she aimlessly followed on her husband's arm. She was suspicious of the device of courtesying.
Finally, she caught Puffie in her arms, and, courtesying so low before Miss Mary that she touched the floor, announced that she was going to her father. From time immemorial she had not talked with him a moment. Sometimes he was going out, or had not the time.
The long sofas and chairs, as if they had only just come out or rather, as if they had just come up from the country to come out had arranged themselves so very formally, and altogether behaved so very awkwardly, that it was almost impossible for the company assembled to appear as much at their ease as, from their position, education, and manners, they really were; and accordingly, biassed by the furniture, they kept moving, and bowing, and courtesying, and sotto-voce talking, until they got into a parallelogram, in the centre of which stood, distinguished by a broad ribbon, and by a mild, thoughtful, benevolent countenance, Prince Louis Napoleon, whose gentle and gentleman-like bearing to every person who approached him entitled him to that monarchical homage in which the majority evidently delighted, but which it was alike his policy as well as his inclination at all events to appear to suppress; and accordingly the parallelogram, which, generally speaking, was at the point of congelation, sometimes and of its own accord froze into the formality of a court, and then all of a sudden appeared to recollect that the Prince was the President, and that the whole party had assembled to enjoy liberté, fraternité, and égalité.
There should be no carrying of canes, or eating of candy, or wearing of jewelry, or talking of beaux, and I would dig up from the grave of the long ago the quaint old custom of courtesying to strangers, of keeping silent until spoken to, and of universal respect for the aged.
"I am sure you had better not," said Aunt Emma, promptly; "but it is not because of the courtesying, Ruby, it is because it is not a kind thing to boast, or to remind any one else of their failings. You know you would not like it yourself, and that ought to be reason enough for your never doing it to any one else. What is the Golden Rule?"
"You can come out, Martha," said the warden. "The gentleman's come to see 'im." As the old woman disappeared, courtesying, he lingered to say, in a whisper, "Do you know him, sir?" "Yes," said Charles, looking fixedly at the figure on the bed. "I remember him. I knew him years ago, in his better days. I dare say he will have something to tell me."
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