"What! make Font Abbey a
kennel!!! No, Lucy, no, this house is sacred; no nuisances admitted
here. Here, on this single spot of earth, reigns comfort, and shall
reign unruffled while I live. This is the temple of peace. If I must
be worried, I must, but not beneath this hallowed roof."
This eloquence, delivered as it was with a sudden solemnity, told upon
the mind.
"Dear Font Abbey," murmured Lucy, half closing her eyes, "how well you
describe it! Societies of the cosey; the walls seem padded, the
carpets velvet, and the whole structure care-proof; all is quiet
gayety and sweet punctuality. Here comfort and good humor move by
clock-work; that is Font Abbey. Yet you are right; if you were to be
seen in it no more, it would lose the life of its charm, dear Uncle
Fountain."
"Thank you, my dear--thank you. I do like to see my friends about me
comfortable, and, above all, to be comfortable myself. The place is
well enough, and I am bitterly sorry I must leave it, and sorry to
leave you, my dear."
"Leave us? not immediately?"
"This very day. Why, the funeral is to be this week--a grand
funeral--and I have to order it all. Then there are relatives to be
invited--thirty letters--others to be asked to the reading of the
will. It will be one hurry-scurry till we get the house clear of the
corpse and the vultures; then at it I must go, head-foremost, into
fathomless addition--subtraction--multiplication, and vexation. 'Oh,
now forever farewell, something or other--farewell content!' You talk
of misanthropy.
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