"' Hence, loathed Melancholy.'"


However by the time "Jonson's learned sock" was on, her mechanical
repetition had become animated, and she had restored herself to
equanimity. When the clock struck nine, her auditor added his thanks,
"In case we should not meet again thus, let me beg of my kind visitor
to wear this ring in memory of one to whom she has brought a breath
indeed from L'Allegro itself. It will not be too large. It was made
for a lady."

And amid her tearful thanks she felt a light kiss on her fingers,
revealing to her that the hermit must possess a beard, a fact, which
in the close-shaven Hanoverian days, conveyed a sense of squalor and
neglect almost amounting to horror.

In her own room she dropped many a tear over the ring, which was of
course the Cupid intaglio, and she spent the night in strange mixed
dreams and yearnings, divided between her father, Betty, and Eugene
on the one hand, and Mr. Belamour and the children on the other.
Home-sick as she sometimes felt, dull as Bowstead was, she should
be sadly grieved to leave those to whom she felt herself almost
necessary, though her choice must needs be for her home.

Early the next day arrived an old roomy berlin loaded heavily with
luggage, and so stuffed with men and maids that four stout horses
had much ado to bring it up to the door. The servants, grumbling
heartily, declared that my Lady was only going to lie here for a
single night, and that Sir Amyas was not with her.