I longed to see this very worthy and noble
lady, but she was out of our reach, being better employed in England.
Nan gave a little sigh to England, but not such a sigh as she would
once have heaved.
And we agreed on the way home to say nothing to my brother of our
meeting with poor Millicent.
My Lord Marquis of Newcastle showed his esteem for my brother by
coming to see him that very day, so soon as he could escape from the
banquet held in honour of the christening, which, like all that was
done by the Dutch, was serious and grim enough, though it could not
be said to be sober.
He declared that he had been ignorant that Lord Walwyn was at the
Hague, or he should have waited on him immediately after arriving
there, 'since nothing,' said the Marquis, 'does me good like the
sight of an honest cavalier.' I am sure Eustace might have said the
same; and they sat talking together long and earnestly about how it
fared with the King in Scotland, and how he had been made to take the
Covenant, which, as they said, was in very truth a dissembling which
must do him grievous ill, spiritually, however it might serve
temporally. My Lord repeated his lady's invitation to a dinner,
which was to be followed up by sleighing on hills formed of ice.
Annora, who always loved rapid motion as an exhilaration of spirits,
brightened at the notion, and Eustace was anxious that it should be
accepted, and thus we found ourselves pledged to enter into the
diversions of the place.
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