Discreet narrow
water-alleys, less flauntingly lit, but with here and there a
caged nightingale singing in the boscage, intersected the
sisters' pleasure-grounds; but the main canal led around an
ample stretch of turf in the midst of which my workmen had
reared a stage for a masque of my composing, entitled _The Rape
of Helen_. Badcock, who was to enact the part of Menelaus, had
at my request attired himself early, for some few of my
nightingales were young birds and not to be depended on, and I
had an idea of concealing him in the shrubberies to supply a
_flauto obbligato_ while our guests arrived. I had interrupted
my instructions to despatch him on some small errand connected
with the coloured fires, and he had scarcely disappeared among
the laurels, when along the path came strolling two figures I
recognized as fellow-countrymen--the young Lord Algernon
Shafto, of the English embassy, and his mother's brother, the
Venerable John Kynaston Worley, Archdeacon of Wells.
Lord Algernon wore a domino.
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