the dozen other statues of nymphs and sylvan gods in a marble that
gleamed in white brilliance amid the dusky green. But Time and Nature
had smoothed the lawns to a velvet surface, had thickened the handsome
boxwood hedges, and thrust up those black spear-like poplars that
completed the very Italianate appearance of that Cornish demesne.

Sir Oliver took his ease in his dining-room considering all this as it
was displayed before him in the mellowing September sunshine, and found
it all very good to see, and life very good to live. Now no man has
ever been known so to find life without some immediate cause, other
than that of his environment, for his optimism. Sir Oliver had several
causes. The first of these--although it was one which he may have been
far from suspecting--was his equipment of youth, wealth, and good
digestion; the second was that he had achieved honour and renown both
upon the Spanish Main and in the late harrying of the Invincible
Armada--or, more aptly perhaps might it be said, in the harrying of the
late Invincible Armada--and that he had received in that the twenty-
fifth year of his life the honour of knighthood from the Virgin Queen;
the third and last contributor to his pleasant mood--and I have
reserved it for the end as I account this to be the proper place for
the most important factor--was Dan Cupid who for once seemed compounded
entirely of benignity and who had so contrived matters that Sir
Oliver's wooing Of Mistress Rosamund Godolphin ran an entirely smooth
and happy course.

So, then, Sir Oliver sat at his ease in his tall, carved chair, his
doublet untrussed, his long legs stretched before him, a pensive smile
about the firm lips that as yet were darkened by no more than a small
black line of moustachios. (Lord Henry's portrait of him was drawn at
a much later period.) It was noon, and our gentleman had just dined,