[A Lady of Quality by Frances Hodgson Burnett]@TWC D-Link bookA Lady of Quality CHAPTER XX--A noble marriage 5/10
"I used to think it folly, but now--" "But now--" said Anne. "I know not what to think," she answered.
"I would learn." But when she listened to Anne's simple homilies, and read her weighty sermons, they but made her restless and unsatisfied. "Nay, 'tis not that," she said one day, with a deep sigh.
"'Tis more than that; 'tis deeper, and greater, and your sermons do not hold it. They but set my brain to questioning and rebellion." But a short time elapsed before the marriage was solemnised, and such a wedding the world of fashion had not taken part in for years, 'twas said. Royalty honoured it; the greatest of the land were proud to count themselves among the guests; the retainers, messengers, and company of the two great houses were so numerous that in the west end of the town the streets wore indeed quite a festal air, with the passing to and fro of servants and gentlefolk with favours upon their arms. 'Twas to the Tower of Camylott, the most beautiful and remote of the bridegroom's several notable seats, that they removed their household, when the irksomeness of the extended ceremonies and entertainments were over--for these they were of too distinguished rank to curtail as lesser personages might have done.
But when all things were over, the stately town houses closed, and their equipages rolled out beyond the sight of town into the country roads, the great duke and his great duchess sat hand in hand, gazing into each other's eyes with as simple and ardent a joy as they had been but young 'prentice and country maid, flying to hide from the world their love. "There is no other woman who is so like a queen," Osmonde said, with tenderest smiling.
"And yet your eyes wear a look so young in these days that they are like a child's.
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