It was now in some
places deprived of the balustrade, in others broken and narrowed; but,
ruinous as it was, could still be used as a pleasant promenade. Here
then walked the two ancient dames, busied in their private
conversation; yet not so much so, but that Roland could observe the
matrons, as their thin forms darkened the casement in passing or
repassing before it, dart a glance into the apartment, to see how
matters were going on there.
Chapter the Eleventh.
Life hath its May, and is mirthful then:
The woods are vocal, and the flowers all odour;
Its very blast has mirth in't,--and the maidens,
The while they don their cloaks to screen their kirtles,
Laugh at the rain that wets them.
OLD PLAY.
Catherine was at the happy age of innocence and buoyancy of spirit,
when, after the first moment of embarrassment was over, a situation of
awkwardness, like that in which she was suddenly left to make
acquaintance with a handsome youth, not even known to her by name,
struck her, in spite of herself, in a ludicrous point of view. She
bent her beautiful eyes upon the work with which she was busied, and
with infinite gravity sate out the two first turns of the matrons upon
the balcony; but then, glancing her deep blue eye a little towards
Roland, and observing the embarrassment under which he laboured, now
shifting on his chair, and now dangling his cap, the whole man
evincing that he was perfectly at a loss how to open the conversation,
she could keep her composure no longer, but after a vain struggle
broke out into a sincere, though a very involuntary fit of laughing,
so richly accompanied by the laughter of her merry eyes, which
actually glanced through the tears which the effort filled them with,
and by the waving of her rich tresses, that the goddess of smiles
herself never looked more lovely than Catherine at that moment.
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