St. Patrick's Hall, too, with its elaborate painted
ceiling, is an exceedingly handsome room, as is the Long Gallery.
At my father's first Drawing-Room, when I officiated as page, the
perpetual kissing tickled my fancy so, that, forgetting that to
live up to my new white-satin breeches and lace ruffles I ought to
wear an impassive countenance, I absolutely shook, spluttered and
wriggled with laughter. The ceremony appeared to me interminable,
for ten-year-old legs soon get tired, and ten-year-old eyelids
grow very heavy as midnight approaches. When at length it ended,
and my fellow-page was curled up fast asleep on the steps of the
throne in his official finery, in glancing at my father I was
amazed to find him prematurely aged. The powder from eight hundred
cheeks and necks had turned his moustache and beard white; he had
to retire to his room and spend a quarter of an hour washing and
brushing the powder out, before he could take part in the
procession through all the staterooms which in those days preceded
supper. My father was still a remarkably handsome man even at
fifty-six years of age, with his great height and his full curly
beard, and I thought my mother, with all her jewels on, most
beautiful, as I am quite sure she was, though only a year younger
than my father.
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