The morning of the fifteenth of May seemed to
have been appointed by all the flowers as a jubilee of
perfume and bloom. The birds had been invited, and
sang in the summer with a welcome as full-throated
as a prima donna singing down the tenor in a duet;
the most laggard buds turned out their hearts to the
sunshine, and promised leaves on the morrow; and
that portion of London that had been invited to Lady
Roseberry's fête, thought it a very fine day! That
partion which was not, wondered how people would
go sweltering about in such a glare for a cold dinner!

At about half past two, a very elegant dark-green
cab without a crest, and with a servant in whose slight
figure and plain blue livery there was not a fault,
whirled out at the gate of the Regent's Park, and took
its way up the well-watered road leading to Hampstead.
The gentlemen whom it passed or met turned
to admire the performance of the dark-gray horse, and
the ladies looked after the cab as if they could see the
handsome occupant once more through its leather
back. Whether by conspiracy among the coachmakers,
or by an aristocracy of taste, the degree of
elegance in a turn-out attained by the cab just described,
is usually confined to the acquaintances of
Lady —; that list being understood to enumerate
all “the nice young men” of the West End, beside
the guardsmen. (The ton of the latter, in all matters
that affect the style of the regiment, is looked after by
the club and the colonel.) The junior Firkins seemed
an exception to this exclusive rule. No “nice man”
could come from Lothbury, and he did not visit Lady—;
but his horse was faultless, and when he turned
into the gate of Rose-Eden, the policeman at the
porter's lodge, though he did not know him, thought
it unnecessary to ask for his name. Away he spattered
up the hilly avenue, and giving the reins to his
groom at the end of a green arbor leading to the reception-lawn,
he walked in and made his bow to Lady
Roseberry, who remarked, “How very handsome!
Who can he be?”—and the junior partner walked on
and disappeared down an avenue of laburnums.

Ah! but Rose-Eden looked a paradise that day!
Hundreds had passed across the close-shaven lawn,
with a bow to the lady-mistress of this fair abode. Yet
the grounds were still private enough for Milton's pair,
so lost were they in the green labyrinths of hill and
dale. Some had descended through heavily-shaded
paths to a fancy dairy, built over a fountain in the bottom
of a cool dell; and here, amid her milk-pans of
old and costly china, the prettiest maid in the country
round pattered about upon a floor of Dutch tiles, and
served her visiters with creams and ices—already, as it
were, adapted to fashionable comprehension. Some
had strayed to the ornamental cottages in the skirts
of the flower-garden—poetical abodes, built from a
picturesque drawing, with imitation roughness; thatch,
lattice-window, and low paling, all complete; and inhabited
by superannuated dependants of Lord Roseberry,
whose only duties were to look like patriarchs,
and give tea and new cream-cheese to visiters on fetedays.
Some had gone to see the silver and gold pheasants
in their wire-houses, stately aristocrats of the game
tribe, who carry their finely-pencilled feathers like
“Marmalet Madarus,” strutting in hoop and farthingale.
Some had gone to the kennels, to see setters
and pointers, hounds and terriers, lodged like gentlemen,
each breed in its own apartment—the puppies, as
elsewhere, treated with most attention. Some were
in the flower-garden, some in the greenhouses, some
in the graperies, aviaries, and grottoes; and at the side
of a bright sparkling fountain, in the recesses of a firgrove,
with her foot upon its marble lip, and one hand
on the shoulder of a small Cupid who archly made a
drinking-cup of his wing, and caught the bright water
as it fell, stood Lady Imogen Ravelgold, the loveliest
girl of nineteen that prayed night and morning within
the parish of May Fair, listening to very passionate
language from the young banker of Lothbury.

A bugle on the lawn rang a recall. From every
alley, and by every path, poured in the gay multitude,
and the smooth sward looked like a plateau of animated
flowers, waked by magic from a broidery on
green velvet. Ah! the beautiful demi-toilettes!—so
difficult to attain, yet, when attained, the dress most
modest, most captivating, most worthy the divine grace
of woman. Those airy hats, sheltering from the sun,
yet not enviously concealing a feature or a ringlet that
a painter would draw for his exhibition-picture!
Those summery and shapeless robes, covering the
person more to show its outline better, and provoke
more the worship, which, like all worship, is made
more adoring by mystery! Those complexions which
but betray their transparency in the sun; lips in which
the blood is translucent when between you and the
light; cheeks finer-grained than alabaster, yet as cool
in their virgin purity as a tint in the dark corner of a
Ruysdael: the human race was at less perfection in
Athens in the days of Lais—in Egypt in the days of
Cleopatra—than that day on the lawn of Rose-Eden.

Cart-loads of ribands, of every gay color, had been
laced through the trees in all directions; and amid
every variety of foliage, and every shade of green, the
tulip-tints shone vivid and brilliant, like an American
forest after the first frost. From the left edge of the

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lawn, the ground suddenly sunk into a dell, shaped
like an amphitheatre, with a level platform at its bottom,
and all around, above and below, thickened a
shady wood. The music of a delicious band stole up
from the recesses of a grove, draped as an orchestra
and green-room on the lower side, and while the
audience disposed themselves in the shade of the upper
grove, a company of players and dancing-girls
commenced their theatricals.—Imogen Ravelgold,
who was separated, by a pine tree only, from the junior
partner, could scarce tell you, when it was finished,
what was the plot of the play.

The recall-bugle sounded again, and the band
wound away from the lawn, playing a gay march.
Followed Lady Roseberry and her suite of gentlemen,
followed dames and their daughters, followed all who
wished to see the flight of my lord's falcons. By a
narrow path and a wicket-gate, the long music-guided
train stole out upon an open hill-side, looking down
on a verdant and spreading meadow. The band played
at a short distance behind the gay groups of spectators,
and it was a pretty picture to look down upon
the splendidly-dressed falconer and his men, holding
their fierce birds upon their wrists, in their hoods and
jesses, a foreground of old chivalry and romance;
while far beyond extended, like a sea over the horizon,
the smoke-clad pinnacles of busy and every-day London.
There are such contrasts of the eyes of the
rich!

The scarlet hood was taken from the trustiest
falcon, and a dove, confined, at first, with a string,
was thrown up, and brought back, to excite his attention.
As he fixed his eye upon him, the frightened
victim was let loose, and the falcon flung off; away
skimmed the dove in a low flight over the meadow,
and up to the very zenith, in circles of amazing swiftness
and power, sped the exulting falcon, apparently
forgetful of his prey, and bound for the eye of the sun
with his strong wings and his liberty. The falconer's
whistle and cry were heard; the dove circled round
the edge of the meadow in his wavy flight; and down,
with the speed of lightning, shot the falcon, striking
his prey dead to the earth before the eye could settle
on his form. As the proud bird stood upon his
victim, looking around with a lifted crest and fierce eye,
Lady Imogen Ravengold heard, in a voice of which
her heart knew the music, “They who soar highest
strike surest; the dove lies in the falcon's bosom.”