esquire, who had no eyes nor ears save for the fair widow of sixteen
whom he had just led in, and Antony, by a fat and deaf lady, whose
only interest was in tasting as many varieties of good cheer as she
could, and trying to discover how and of what they were compounded.
Knowing Mistress Cicely to be a member of the family, she once or
twice referred the question to her across Antony, but getting very
little satisfaction, she gave up the young lady as a bad specimen of
housewifery, and was forced to be content with her own inductions.

There was plenty of time for Antony to begin with, "Are there as many
conies as ever in the chase?" and to begin on a discussion of all the
memories connected with the free days of childhood, the blackberry
and bilberry gatherings, the hide-and-seek in the rocks and heather,
the consternation when little Dick was lost, the audacious comedy
with the unsuspected spectators, and all the hundred and one
recollections, less memorable perhaps, but no less delightful to
both. It was only thus gradually that they approached their recent
encounter in the Castleton Cavern, and Antony explained how he had
burnt to see his dear Queen and mistress once again, and that his
friends, Tichborne and the rest, were ready to kiss every footstep
she had taken, and almost worshipped him and John Eyre for contriving
this mode of letting them behold the hitherto unknown object of their
veneration.

All that passionate, chivalrous devotion, which in Sidney, Spenser,
and many more attached itself to then-great Gloriana, had in these
young men, all either secretly or openly reconciled to Rome, found
its object in that rival in whom Edmund Spenser only beheld his false
Duessa or snowy Florimel. And, indeed, romance had in her a
congenial heroine, who needed little self-blinding so to appear. Her