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Or he was found tete-a-tete with mamma before the five-o'clock tea, talking, no doubt, 'Raphaels, Correggios, and stuff, as in the Royal Wardour days. Even at Clipston, or in the coves on the beach, he was only too apt to start up from some convenient post for sketching. He really did draw beautifully, and Mysie would have been thankful for his counsels if public opinion had not been so strong.
It all was most pleasant in that summer weather going backwards and forwards between the houses; the Sunday coming into church and lunching at Aunt Jane's, where Valetta and Primrose stayed for Mrs. Hablot's class, and were escorted home by Macrae in time for evening service at Clipston, where their mother, Gillian, and Mysie reigned over their little school.
Clipston was to be repaired and put in order, to be rented by the Merrifields. It was really a fine old substantial squire's house, though neglected and consigned to farmers for four generations.
The rest of the parks were totally defaced and destroyed, both wood, pales and deer; amongst which was also Clipston Park of seven miles compass, wherein my lord had taken much delight formerly, it being rich of wood, and containing the greatest and tallest timber trees of all the woods he shad; insomuch that only the pale-row was valued at two thousand pounds.
The young people were in ecstasies, only mourning that they could not live there during the repairs, and that those experienced in the nature of workmen hesitated to promise that Clipston would be habitable by the summer vacation.
'It is not trouble -it is rest, he said; and at her gasp, 'Besides, marble works or no, one ought to make the best of one's self. By the time Mr. and Mrs. White came back from Scotland, the repairs at Clipston had been accomplished, and the Merrifields had taken possession.
Resolving to have no spectators, Lady Merrifield sent off the entire family for a picnic at Clipston, promising them with some confidence that they would not be haunted by Captain Henderson, and that she would come in the waggonette, bringing Fergus as soon as he was out of school, drink tea, and fetch home the tired.
'How thankful I shall be to have you all safe at Clipston! 'But, mamma, can't you keep him off us? Valetta's sobbing entrance here prevented more; but while explaining to her the causes of her father's displeasure, her mother extracted a good deal more of the gossip, to which she finally returned answer 'There is no telling the harm that is done by chattering gossip in this way.
Sir Jasper, who thought she behaved exceedingly well about it, authorised an earnest invitation to make her home at Clipston; but though she was much gratified, she knew she should be in his way, and, perhaps, in that of the boys, and it was too far from the work to which she meant to devote herself even more completely, when it would be no longer needful to be companionable to a semi-invalid fond of society.
Looks and signs among the ladies were token enough that the crisis had come; and Lady Merrifield soon secured freedom of speech by proposing to drive her sister to Clipston, while Sir Jasper asked his visitor to walk with him. 'You will be in haste to sketch the place, he said, 'before the workmen have done their best to demolish its beauty.
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