enaded; but they considered that that would be hardly
worth while, and would moreover be a rather grave
departure from custom, and therefore likely to make
talk. A departure from custom -- that settled it; it
was a nation capable of committing any crime but
that. The servants said they would follow the fashion,
a fashion grown sacred through immemorial observ-
ance; they would scatter fresh rushes in all the rooms
and halls, and then the evidence of the aristocratic
visitation would be no longer visible. It was a kind of
satire on Nature: it was the scientific method, the
geologic method; it deposited the history of the family
in a stratified record; and the antiquary could dig
through it and tell by the remains of each period what
changes of diet the family had introduced successively