The pleached walks and parterres were in all the freshness of
June. Roses and jasmine mingled on the terrace-walls, citron-trees
ingeniously grafted with red and white carnations stood in Faenza jars
before the lemon-house, and marble nymphs and fauns peeped from thickets
of flowering camellias. A noise of childish voices presently attracted
Odo, and following a tunnel of clipped limes he came out on a theatre
cut in the turf and set about with statues of Apollo and the Muses. A
handful of boys in military dress were performing a series of evolutions
in the centre of this space; and facing them stood a child of about ten
years, in a Colonel's uniform covered with orders, his hair curled and
powdered, a paste-board sword in his hand, and his frail body supported
on one side by a turbaned dwarf, and on the other by an ecclesiastic who
was evidently his governor. The child, as Odo approached, was calling
out his orders to his regiment in a weak shrill voice, moving now here,
now there on his booted tottering legs, as his two supporters guided
him, and painfully trying to flourish the paper weapon that was too
heavy for his nerveless wrist. Behind this strange group stood another
figure, that of a tall heavy man, richly dressed, with a curious
Oriental-looking order on his breast and a veiled somnolent eye which he
kept fixed on the little prince.
Odo had been about to advance and do homage to his cousin; but a sign
from the man in the background arrested him.
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