'He laughed at me because I went to church yesterday, and really I only
went because I thought it _right_. We have been here a fortnight, and
I have never been to church at all till yesterday, and you know how
very serious dear Aunt Carrie is. To-day, as it is the second Sunday
I have been here, I thought I ought to go just once, and I did go;
but it was dreadfully pompous and lonely in the big red pew, and the
villagers stared so, and all the little girls of the village giggled,
and looked at me from under their sun-bonnets. Dear Mr Coate preached a
sermon on Marriage. It was very kind of him; but, oh, how I wished he
hadn't! When I got back, Piero was playing billiards with his servant.
I wondered what Mr Coate would have thought of him. To be sure, English
clergymen have to get used to fast Sundays now, when the country houses
are full. It is such a dear little yew walk to the church from the
house here, not twenty yards long, and all lined with fuchsia. Do you
remember it? Even Piero admits that it is very pretty, only he says it
is a vignette prettiness, which, I suppose, is true. "You can see no
horizon, only a green wall," he keeps complaining; and his beautiful,
lustrous eyes look as if they were made to gaze through endless
fields of light. When I asked him yesterday what he really thought of
England, what do you suppose he said? He said, "_Mia cara_, I think
it would be a most delightful country if it had one-fifth of its
population, one-half of its houses, a tithe of its dinners, a quarter
of its machinery, none of its factories, none of its tramways, and a
wholly different atmosphere!" I suppose this means that he dislikes
it. I think him handsomer than ever. I sent you his photograph, but
that can give you no idea of him. He is like one of his own marble
statues. We came to Coombe Bysset directly after the ceremony, and we
are here still. I could stay on for ever. It is so lovely in these
Bedfordshire woods in mid-June. But I am afraid--just the very least
bit afraid--that Piero may get bored with me--me--me--nothing but me.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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