This new-found dawn seemed wholly to belong to
the birds. Perhaps it was their universal chirping and carolling that
concealed the distant echo of the highways; for surely the heavily-laden
wains were now making in for Covent Garden? At all events there was
nothing here but this continuous bird-clamor and the voices of these
modern nymphs and swains as they went this way and that over the
velvet-smooth lawn.
And now the bewitching Pastora appears upon the scene (but would Mrs.
Clive have worn a gold _pince-nez_ at rehearsal?) and she has just
quarrelled with her lover Palaemon--
"Insulting boy! I'll tear him from my mind;
Ah! would my fortune could a husband find!
And just in time, young Damon comes this way,
A handsome youth he is, and rich, they say."
The butterfly-hearted Damon responds at once:
"Vouchsafe, sweet maid, to hear a wretched swain,
Who, lost in wonder, hugs the pleasing chain:
For you in sighs I hail the rising day,
To you at eve I sing the lovesick lay;
Then take my love, my homage as your due--
The Devil's in her, if all this won't do." [_Aside._
It must be confessed that the pretty and smiling and blushing Miss
Georgie Lestrange looked just a little self-conscious as she had to
listen to this extremely frank declaration; but she had the part of the
coquettish Pastora to play; and Pastora, as soon as she discovers that
Damon has no thought of marriage, naturally declines to have anything to
do with him.
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