I remember the old Steyne when Mrs. FitzHerbert lived
close by, and received all the best people, in the days when the Cockney
had not yet taken possession of Brighthelmstone, and the Chinese dragons
and pagodas were bright and fresh in the Pavilion."
To Brighton, therefore, the bride and bridegroom departed; Diana attended
by a maid, an appanage which the Captain had insisted upon. Poor Diana
was sorely puzzled as to what she should find for the maid to do when her
hair had been dressed early in the morning, and her costume laid out in
state for the day.
"I think I must buy some handkerchiefs for her to hem," she said to
Gustave; "it will be quite dreadful for her to have nothing to do all
day long."
The weather was warm and bright. The sea danced and sparkled under the
windows. Gustave was always in the same happy frame of mind. An elegant
landau had been secured for the period of their visit, and a pair of
capital horses carried them out on long and pleasant expeditions to the
pretty Sussex villages, or across the broad bare downs, beyond which the
sea stretched blue and bright.
In the evening, when the lamp was lighted and the urn hissed gaily, Diana
felt that she and her husband were at home. It was the first home she had
known--the first time she had been sole mistress and centre of a
household. She looked back at all the old desolation, the dreary shifting
from lodging to lodging, the degradation, the self-abasement, the dull
apathy of despair; and then she looked across at her husband as he
lounged in his easy-chair, contemplating her with dreamy adoring eye, in
a kind of lazy worship; and she knew that for this man she was the centre
of the universe, the very keystone in the arch of life.
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