“Look, my lady!” he cried, as they drove up the avenue, “see what a noble house it is; there is no other, in all England, of its size and beauty.  And Gerald waits to receive us with no Duchess at his side.”

Her ladyship leaned forward to look, and gazed a moment in silence.

“There should be one,” she cried, “to reign over such a place, and to be happy in it.”

The village saw gayety enough to turn its head in the two weeks that followed.  The flag floated from the tower every day, coaches rolled past the village green laden with the county gentry who came to pay their respects, gay cavalcades rode down the avenue and through the big gates to gallop over the country with joyous laughter and talk; at the Plough Horse, Mr. Mount, who had grown too old for service, but had been pensioned and was more fond of fine stories than ever, added to his importance as a gentleman of quality by describing the banquets at the Towers, the richness of the food, the endless courses, the massiveness of the gold plate, the rareness of the wines, and the magnificence of the costumes of the guests.

“There are fine women there,” he would say, removing his long churchwarden’s pipe from his mouth and waving it to give emphasis.  “In my day I have seen King Charles at Hampton Court—­my Lady Castlemaine, and Mistress Frances Stewart, who married a Duke and had her eyes put out by smallpox and her face spoiled forever, poor soul; and De Querouaille—­the one you will call Carwell, which is not her name, but a French one—­and Mazarin—­and all could see Nell Gwynne who could pay for a seat in the play-house—­so I may well be a judge of women—­and have lived gayly myself about the Court.  But there is one—­this moment at Camylott Towers—­there is one,” describing a great circle with his pipe as if he writ her name, “and may the devil seize and smite me, if there was ever a lady with such a body and face on earth before.”

“Tis the tall one with the flashing black eyes,” cried out Will Bush the first night that he said it.  “Me and my dame saw her through the glass of the coach the day they drove over the green with all their servants come to follow them from Lunnon town with pistols and hangers.  And what think you? says I to Joan, ‘Ecod,’ says I, ’there’s the woman for our own Duke, and matches him for size and beauty!’ And says Joan, staring:  ‘Lord a mercy, so she is and does!’”

“Village folk,” said Mr. Mount with decorum, “are not the ones to take upon themselves the liberty to say who will suit a Duke or who will not suit him.  But this I will say to you, that for once you were not so far wrong; I having said the same thing myself.  And his Grace is a single man, whom they say loves no woman—­and my lady has a husband near seventy years of age.  So things go!”