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His holiness, however, had ordered a company of his halberdiers to attend, and the ground was kept by those wonderful guards in the dress of the middle ages halberds and ruffs, and white plumes, and party-colored coats, a match for our beef-eaters. Carriages with scarlet umbrellas on the box, and each with three serving-men behind, denoted the presence of the cardinals in force.
Henry, discarding the grey jacket and simple costume on which he was wont to pride himself, paraded himself about in perfumed ruffs and glittering doublet, an ancient fop, very little heroic, and much ridiculed.
Deep ruffs, painfully wrought bands, and gorgeously embroidered gloves, were all deemed necessary to the official state of men assuming the reins of power, and were readily allowed to individuals dignified by rank or wealth, even while sumptuary laws forbade these and similar extravagances to the plebeian order.
Then came the "mediaeval" damsels in ruffs and high hats, the Highland maidens, with Valetta and Primrose giggling unmanageably; and Aunt Jane's troop of the various costumes of charity children, from the green frocks, long mittens, and tall white caps, and the Jemima Placid flat hats and long waists, down to the red cloaks, poke straw bonnets, and blue frocks of the Lady Bountiful age.
"Very well," said the duke, "I am coming. But I should like first to finish the matter of this costume. Let us see friend, what's your name what are we deciding upon for these ruffs? Au revoir, doctor. There is nothing to be done, is there, except to continue the pills?"
The four were so preoccupied with this ceremony that she slipped past them without attracting the disagreeable attention she might otherwise have received. As she passed, the beruffled gentlemen were laughing, and she heard one of them say: "God buy you, friends, our ruffs and bilbos have had careful measurement, I warrant you." "Right careful, in sooth," said one of those with the yardsticks.
Supposing it had been so, and that I were now withering under the family doom, homesick and sick unto death "in furrin parts!" My last supposition I thought aloud: "I suppose they know all the old knights, and those people in ruffs, with their sons and daughters kneeling behind them, now. That is, if they were good, and went to heaven."
She is better acquainted with Shakespeare and Raleigh, than with Congreve and Prior; and is far more at home among the ruffs and peaked beards of Theobald's, than among the Steenkirks and flowing periwigs which surrounded Queen Anne's tea table at Hampton.
And, off fur as the eye could see, way through between and around, wuz other beautiful islands and trees covered with spires and ruffs peepin' out of the green.
Her silken farthingales hung like serge robes, her ruffs looked like mufflers, her coifs like hoods, even necklaces seemed rosaries, and her scrupulous neatness enhanced the pure unearthly air of all belonging to her. Eager and lively, fair and handsome, sat the Baronne de Ribaumont, or rather, since the higher title had been laid aside, Dame Annora Thistlewood.
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