text:  We had an hour or two of the little variations of placid amusement which belong to all parsonages in romances but which here were reality; easy conversation on the events of the county; a little political talking with the vicar; a few details of persons and fashions at the castle to which the ladies listened as Desdemona might have listened to Othello's history--for the Castle was so seldom visited by them that it had almost the air of a Castle of Otranto and they evidently thought that its frowning towers and gilded halls belonged to another race if not to another region of existence; we had too some of the last new songs (at least half a century old but which were not the less touching ) and a duet of Geminiani performed by the two elder proficients on a spinet which might have been among the "chamber music" of the Virgin Queen; all slight matters to speak of and yet which contributed to the quietude of a mind longing for rest--sights of innocence and sounds of peace which like the poet's music-- "Might take the prison'd soul And wrap it in Elysium