CHAPTER VIThe Garden House, so called because it lay at some distance from Harefield Park and was not in the garden, was a species of pleasure-house or folly, built by the Nabob in his old age under the influence (we regret to say) of a French lady of great charm and beauty who was no better than she should be and found the market for this quality better in England than in Revolutionary France. It had also afforded scope for the undoubted gifts of the French architect and decorator who was the ultimate cause of her being dismissed from Harefield Park with a handsome present of bank notes (for the Nabob was, to tell the truth, heartily glad to get rid of her and her extravagance) and a large amount of jewellery whose absence was not discovered till she had gone.
An exotic among dog violets
