“There, dearest,” I said, as I wrought preoccupied, “you are the best of loving chickens, and I shall have plenty of use for you by and by. Only at present--there, don’t pout--I am too jubilant in the prospect of escape to cling and kiss and cry with you. I’m not going to Land’s End, only across the way; and mind, no more communications from a certain gentleman, miss, unless on my behalf.” She promised, with new floods of tears. “Then,” I said, pushing her playfully away, “find me my vinaigrette, child. Father Pope is going to convey me in the carriage.” XII. I AM INFAMOUSLY RETALIATED ON I remember once dining in Sorrento with the Marquis de P----, a most exclusive sybarite and dilettante. The table was spread with a flesh silk damask, whose very touch was a caress. Before each of the company--a small and appreciative one--was placed one iridescent Venetian goblet, and a bunch of lavender in a floss silk napkin--nothing else whatever. The room--vaulted into Moorish arabesques, and swimming with a slumberous half-penetrable light, in which the crusted gold of stalactites, high in the groining, alloyed and confused itself with the stain from purple windows--gave upon a dusky pillared court, where zithers and the plash of a fountain wedded in soft music, and the breath of orange blossoms made us a dim impalpable barrier against the world. The plates were served each ready charged, and each with a golden spoon only; for knives were not to be allowed to sever this dream of sensuous rumination. There was but a single wine--the Château Yquem, which is reserved for the nobility of its district, and which never goes beyond but in a few favoured directions. We talked but little and idly, with a mingling of delicious sighs and happy low laughter. Towards the end the zithers ceased; the remote fountain tinkled alone; and a girl, a ghost of loveliness, danced and wreathed herself without in a flood of moonlight. It was all perfect satisfaction without surfeit. Of such is the kingdom of heaven. And yet there are times when I wonder if my host has gone to join Lazarus or Dives. _Mon ami_, I am often full of such wonders; and then sometimes--when, perhaps, I have not kept the perfect proportion, and my head aches--I think I will end my days in a convent, and purify my wicked digestion on lentils and spring water. Only, where is the convent? I have seen some in my day, and in not one have they cultivated their little paradise on cabbages. I find myself standing aghast on that neutral ground between the world and the Church; and, alas! there are so many other nice people standing there to keep me company. With such, this desert itself becomes an Eden, and on either side I cannot escape from it but into another. The Convent of Perpetual Invocation received me with open arms from my morose jailer. It conducted me, in the person of its Mother, to the sunny parlour, and there sleeked and patted me fondly.