He was a peer at such moments; a grandee--the grandee who can wear his hat or sit down (which is it? it is most important to be accurate) in the presence of his deity, I mean his sovereign; he could actually step on the same sward pressed by the holy toes of the Pamments. In justice to him it must be said that he was most careful not to obtrude himself into the sight of their sacred majesties. If they were at home he rarely went in, if he did he crept round unfrequented paths, the byeways of the gardens, and hid himself under the fig trees, as it were. But if by chance a Pamment did light upon him, it was noteworthy that he was literally dandled and fondled like an infant, begged to come in, and take wine, and so so, and so so. In justice to old Iden let it be known that he was most careful not to obtrude himself; he hid himself under the fig trees. Hardly credible is it? that a man of ninety years--a man of no common intelligence--a man of books, and coins, and antiquities, should, in this nineteenth century, bend his aged knees in such a worship. Incredible as it may seem it is certainly true. Such loyalty in others of old time, remember, seems very beautiful when we read of the devotion that was shown towards Charles Stuart. With all his heart and soul he worshipped the very ground the Pamments trod on. He loved to see them in the Abbey church; when they were at home he never failed to attend service, rain, snow, thunder, ninety years notwithstanding, he always attended that he might bow his venerable head to them as they swept up the aisle, receiving the faintest, yet most gracious, smile of recognition in return. He was quite happy in his pew if he could see them at their carved desks in the chancel; the organ sounded very beautiful then; the light came sweetly through the painted windows; a sanctity and heavenly presence was diffused around. Rebellious Amaryllis knew all this, and hated it. Her Flamma foot tapped the sacred sward. Grandfather Iden, after mopping his mouth with his silk handkerchief, began to point with his cudgel--a big hockey stick--at the various parts of the building. This was Elizabethan, that dated from James II., that went back to Henry VII., there were walls and foundations far more ancient still, out of sight. Really, it was a very interesting place archæologically, if only you could have got rid of the Pamments. Amaryllis made no remark during this mumbling history. Iden thought she was listening intently. At the conclusion he was just moving her--for she was passive now, like a piece of furniture--when he spied some one at a window.