There are more statues gracing this noble
place. There is Cupid, who has been at the point of kissing Psyche this
half-century at least, though the delicious event has never come off,
through all those blazing summers and dreary winters: there is Venus and
her Boy under the damp little dome of a cracked old temple. Through the
alley of this old garden, in which their ancestors have disported in
hoops and powder, Monsieur de Florac's chair is wheeled by St. Jean, his
attendant; Madame de Preville's children trot about, and skip, and play
at cache-cache. The R. P. de Florac (when at home) paces up and down and
meditates his sermons; Madame de Florac sadly walks sometimes to look at
her roses; and Clive and Ethel Newcome are marching up and down; the
children, and their bonne of course being there, jumping to and fro; and
Madame de Florac, having just been called away to Monsieur le Comte,
whose physician has come to see him.
Ethel says, "How charming and odd this solitude is: and how pleasant to
hear the voices of the children playing in the neighbouring Convent
garden," of which they can see the new chapel rising over the trees.
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