Then, too, did he smile when, at
the head of his own little board, he sat with his children and
humbler dependents, all furnished with ample Christmas fare by the
baronet's still open hand.
When Thaddeus shared these primeval scenes of old England by the side
of his British parent, (which festivities are still honorably
preserved by some of its most ancient and noblest families,) they
brought back to his heart those similar assemblages at Villanow and
in Cracovia, where his revered grandfather, the palatine, had reigned
prince and father over every happy breast. [Footnote: The writer
remembers a similar scene to the above when she had the honor of
dining, along with her revered family, on a festival of harvest-home
at Bushy Palace, when its royal owner, his late majesty, was Duke of
Clarence. Himself moved through his rustic guests in the gracious
manner described.]
And happy were now the recollections of all who met at Deerhurst on
this their first joyful Christmas season! Week after week glided
along in the bland exercise of social duties aided by the more
homefelt enjoyments of sweet domestic affections, which gave a living
grace to all that was said or done and more intimately knit hearts
together, never more to be divided.
But winter's howling blasts and sheltering halls, "where fireside
comforts, taste, and gentle love, with soft amenities mingled into
bliss," swiftly and fairer, changed their pleasant song, proclaiming
in every brightening hue the hymn of nature--
"These, as they change, Almighty Father!
Are but the varied God! The rolling year
Is full of Thee! Forth in the pleasing spring
Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love;"
and in the first month of that genial season, when the young grass
covers the downy hills with verdure, and the glowing branches of the
trees bud with an infant foliage, the sun smiles in the heavens, and
the pellucid streams reflect his glorious rays, the day was fixed by
Sir Robert Somerset, and approved by the beloved objects of his then
peculiar solicitude, in which his paternal hand should plight theirs
together before the altar of eternal truth.
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