[Burlesques by William Makepeace Thackeray]@TWC D-Link bookBurlesques CHAPTER I 11/15
And so sanctified was his Reverence grown, that he thought it was a shame to kill the pretty deer, (though he ate of them still hugely, both in pasties and with French beans and currant-jelly,) and being shown a quarter-staff upon a certain occasion, handled it curiously, and asked "what that ugly great stick was ?" Lady Huntingdon, late Maid Marian, had still some of her old fun and spirits, and poor Ivanhoe begged and prayed that she would come and stay at Rotherwood occasionally, and egayer the general dulness of that castle.
But her ladyship said that Rowena gave herself such airs, and bored her so intolerably with stories of King Edward the Confessor, that she preferred any place rather than Rotherwood, which was as dull as if it had been at the top of Mount Athos. The only person who visited it was Athelstane.
"His Royal Highness the Prince" Rowena of course called him, whom the lady received with royal honors.
She had the guns fired, and the footmen turned out with presented arms when he arrived; helped him to all Ivanhoe's favorite cuts of the mutton or the turkey, and forced her poor husband to light him to the state bedroom, walking backwards, holding a pair of wax-candles.
At this hour of bedtime the Thane used to be in such a condition, that he saw two pair of candles and two Ivanhoes reeling before him.
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