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Updated: June 6, 2025
Then come the "kettle-drums," with sunset looking in for company; then the receptions are held in rooms full of sunshine, with open windows letting in the outside fragrance and bird-song and glimpses of charming landscape, or they are turned into fêtes-champêtres in the surrounding gardens; then come the riding-parties to the Falls, where last night's sylph may be to-day's Amazon in the midst of exceedingly grand scenery.
The faces turned up towards her most of them honest, good-natured, cheerful almost every one of them reminded her of some amusing moment; an autumn and winter of riding-parties, skating, snow-shoeing, drives, balls, dinners, concerts; a wild dance over shining ice and drifting snow, or through a sea of light and music mingled with the ring of glasses, with laughter and animated talk.
In the morning, I ride on horseback with the marquis, who is kind enough to spare me the crowd and tumult of the general riding-parties. In the evening, I take a hand at whist, then I chat a while with the ladies, and I try my best to cast off at their feet my bear's skin and reputation; for I dislike to display any eccentricity of my own, this one rather more so than any other.
Meudon is smiling; Clamart breaks into song; the air in the valley of Chevreuse is heavy with violets; the willows shower their catkins on the banks of the Yvette; and farther yet, over yonder beneath the green domes of the forest of Fontainebleau, the deer prick their ears at the sound of the first riding-parties. Off with you!
Brentham was a great riding family. In the summer season the duke delighted to head a numerous troop, penetrate far into the country, and scamper home to a nine-o'clock dinner. All the ladies of the house were fond and fine horse-women. The mount of one of these riding-parties was magical.
Occasionally Clive was at their riding-parties, but Ethel rallied him and treated him with such distance and dignity, at the same time looking fondly and archly at her uncle, that Clive set her down as a very haughty, spoiled, aristocratic young creature. In fact, the two young people were too much alike in disposition to agree perfectly, and Ethel's parents were glad that it was so.
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