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"Certainly not, if you can help it. Cannot you think of some excuse?" I dare say there is no moon; come, be nervous, cannot you? You would not surely come back along those bad roads on a dark night?"

Lady Lacy went to consult the almanack, and soon informed him that on the twenty-eighth, the moon would be nearly at the full.

"Provoking!" said the baronet. "To be dragged out against one's will to eat another man's dinner, when one had so much rather have one's own. Disengaged too-good moon-good health-every thing against one-not the shadow of an excuse. Why could not I have the gout now? It often comes when I don't want it even a cold would save me I have a good mind to have a cold, only I am so inconveniently honest, I cannot tell a lie without some foundation. Well, my lady-what now? Are you studying Moore's predictions?"

Lady Lacy, with a puzzled look, was poring over the almanack. "They have made a mistake," said she. "The twenty-eighth is on a Friday; now the note says, Thursday the twenty-eighth. I suppose they meant Friday-Sir William, don't you

think so?"

Sir William did not hear her.

"Sir William!" she repeated, "Friday is the twenty-eighth-we must go to them on Friday." "Well my dear, I am quite resigned. Oh! there is Herbert-Herbert, have you any engagement for the twenty-eighth?"

"None whatever."

"Very well-then Lady L., you may tell them that Herbert will come too."

Lady Lacy's answer was soon written, sealed and sent, and nothing further occurred worthy of attention through the long interval between that time, and the twenty-eighth. The expected first visit was looked forward to with very different

feelings by the three members of the party invited-by Sir William Lacy, as a positive evil, to which he was hardly reconciled by thinking it a necessary one; by Lady Lacy, with more curiosity than she chose to confess; and by Herbert with that deep feeling of lively interest, with which a youthful lover may be supposed to contemplate an event, which restores him once more to the society of the object of his attachment. His first presentation at the king's levee, had not been half so full of interest and excitement, as was the prospect of this, the first evening that he should pass in the house of Mr. Morton. Every thing seemed to favour him-every thing had turned out well, beyond his utmost expectations. Prejudices had melted away, which he had deemed almost immoveable; and the reconciliation had been so easily effected, that he was now more inclined to wonder why the families should have been so long disunited.

All would now be healed; and Sackville, the common friend of both families, was happily at hand, to cement their friendship and strengthen their growing feelings of good will.

CHAPTER XVI.

Afflict us not, ye Gods, though sinners,
With many days like this, or dinners.
SOAME JENINS.

AT length the twenty-eighth arrived, the carriage was at the door, and after waiting some time for Sir William, with whom punctuality was not among the foremost of his virtues, the party set out for Dodswell. It was a cold and rainy afternoon, thoroughly uncomfortable, as a cold day in summer always is. Sir William was particularly annoyed at the weather, and uttered a good deal of invective against English seasons, and country hospitalities. "This is what I call pleasure," said he, with an ironical grin, as he threw himself back in the carriage. "Conceive, if you can, a spectacle more delightful, than that of a whole family going, in the very worst of weather, six miles out and back again, actuated and supported only by a noble determination to do as other people do. Seriously, this was all very well in the dark ages, but we ought to have devised some better system in the nineteenth century. People must set a higher value upon themselves, to think it can be worth your while to take all this trouble for the sake of five hours of their society. I hope we are not early. They deserve to wait dinner for asking us. I would even have the gout at this moment, to escape that purgatorial period of suspense, that one undergoes in the drawing-room. There is another blot in the system. People should sit

down as they come. Nobody should be waited for. The comfort of dinner is ruined by ceremony. If I were a king, as the children say, I would abolish the whole etiquette of the table, and let people do as they like. What in the world would it signify, if one even eat one's cheese before one's fish?"

"It would look very odd," said Lady Lacy.

"Look! ay, there we are-and pray, Ma'am, what signify looks? Nobody looks well, when they are eating their dinner. Nobody ever saw man, woman, or child, that sat for their portrait, painted eating; a proof that the action is not becoming.'

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At length they arrived within sight of Dodswell. It was a fair specimen of the average of private gentlemen's places. The grounds were of tolerable extent, but flat and tame; the house, spacious and respectable in its appearance, but by no means conspicuous for ornament; and built, in that absence of all styles, which, for want of a better name, we call English. In fine weather, the place looked tolerably pretty; but now, with its damp, green flats, its deep, dark masses of wet foliage. and the melancholy groups of dingy sheep, congregated round the black stems of the spreading elm-trees, it looked thoroughly dull and deplorable; and Sir William did nothing but abuse it all the way from the entrance-gate to the house-door.

Arrived there, and the bell being wrung with all the energy of impatience, by the dripping servant, there arose a fresh subject of complaint, in the delay, to which they were exposed, the summons not being answered with the alertness usual in such cases. The baronet grumbled exceedingly at their tardiness, and as soon as the door was opened, without more ado, bustled into the house followed by his wife and son. Mr. Morton's butler, who did not seem much better pleased than the

baronet, stared, and shuffled, and hesitated, as he conducted the party through the rooms, and at last said rather drily, "that his master and mistress were dressing for dinner."

Oh! then we are in excellent time," said Sir William. "I am glad to hear it," with a look at Lady Lacy which expressed quite the reverse.

The servant stared again, looked at their dresses, and announcing, in a muttering tone, "Sir William and Lady Lacy," as he crossed the doorway of the next room, withdrew, with the same inexplicable look of perplexity with which he met them at the entrance door.

No sooner were their names announced, and scarcely had they entered the inner sitting room, than a gentleman, in an evening dress, who was sitting in an arm chair reading a newspaper, rose and came forward to meet them, and they found themselves accosted by Mr. Sackville. He received them with that graceful ease and warmth which were always at his command; yet he was evidently taken by surprise: and there was something in his manner which they could not entirely understand.

"This is an unexpected pleasure," said he, after the first greetings. "I had given up all hopes of meeting you here.”

"Why, to be sure, it is bad weather for leaving home," said the baronet; but you don't know how hardy we are.

"And we always keep our engagements," said his lady.

"Do you?" replied Sackville, with a laugh, which had evidently some meaning in it which none of his hearers comprehended.

With this they might probably have been soon made acquainted, for he was going to proceed in explanation, when the door opened, and Miss Morton entered the room. She cast a look of much

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