Great efforts had occasionally been made to dispossess and unseat them, and their security depended mainly on a hump in the middle of the mound which defied the dance.
Watteau-like groups were already couched in the shade.

There were ladies of all sorts: town-bred and country-bred: farmers' daughters and daughters of peers: for this pic-nic, as Lady Jocelyn, disgusting the Countess, would call it, was in reality a 'fete champetre', given annually, to which the fair offspring of the superior tenants were invited the brothers and fathers coming to fetch them in the evening.

It struck the eye of the Countess de Saldar that Olympus would be a fitting throne for her, and a point whence her shafts might fly without fear of a return.

Like another illustrious General at Salamanca, she directed a detachment to take possession of the height.

Courtly Sir John Loring ran up at once, and gave the diplomatist an opportunity to thank her flatteringly for gaining them two minutes to themselves.