sense of shame, which good breeding would have engendered, for the tardiness of their appearancebut from downright spite and vexation at finding the lower seats only unoccupied for their reception. Either accident or design marshalled the company in very curious couples. Reginald Cranmer found the arm of Caroline Ponton encircled within his own; Charles Ponton, that of Marianne Cranmer; Nicholas Tyndale was paired with Jemima Ponton; and although Mrs. Ponton, from courtesy and good-breeding, selected Major Dacre for her dinner associate, that worthy gentleman contrived, somehow not to heed it, but to sidle up to Mrs. Danvers-who, on receiving the Major's challenge of his arm, was pleased to remark that "Major Dacre did her great honour." The Major seemed to be seven feet high as he conveyed his prize into the dining-room.

One or two other traits are deserving of a slight notice. As Reginald Cranmer was escorting his partner, Caroline Ponton, the latter trembled somewhat, as her arm rested upon his. "I hope you are not ill, Miss Ponton ?"

"Oh no! I have had a chill on me all the morning; but we shall be merry and warm presently." Now it is just possible that some one of my readers may attribute motives or causes for this trembling, the very reverse of the real one.

The fact was, that through some unguarded channel-either from the lips of her brother, or of Marianne Cranmer-Caroline Ponton had heard of the direful meeting of Charles and the Individual who was then conducting her into the dinner apartment. Yet why should our Caroline keep looking three times at the face of Reginald Cranmer, for once upon her plate? And why should our Hero keep telling her, during the repast, that she absolutely ate nothing?

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CHAPTER X.

POLEMICS OF THE DINING AND DRAWING ROOMS.

I KNOW not what may have been the usual good or ill fortune of the generality of my readers, but it has been the frequent fate of the author of Cranmer to partake of large and splendid dinner-entertainments, when the brightest object at table was the the épergne or the candelabra; when guests were plentiful, and conversation scant; when servants were nearly as plentiful as guests, and you could scarcely get your plate taken away, or your bread renewed. There is, perhaps, no species of conviviality more chilling, pompous, and repulsive than a regular set-out dinner party in the great city of London. You may, or you may not, have the good fortune to know the name of the lady or gentleman by whom you are sitting-for the English too frequently add to their naturally morbid taciturnity and coldness by withholding the very means of enlivening the one and warming the other. You may, or you may not, in consequence, speak ill, or

disparagingly, or equivocally, of that same neighbour's near relation, or best friend: for how is instinct to direct us here? A meeting the next morning on Wimbledon Common may, or may not, tread upon the heels of a dinner to-day in Belgrave-square. And then the costliness of the banquet!-the perpetual shifting of the side-dishes!-the besieging of your person!-neither head nor elbows knowing rest. What has been said during the last half-hour? "Grisi was sadly out of tune on Saturday evening ;" or "the rector was tiresomely long in his discourse last Sunday morning."—" How suffocatingly hot at Lady C.'s on Tuesday last !”—“ What a dull, dead piece of business was The Ancient* last night!" And so forth.

Of a complexion very different from that of the preceding, was the DINNER PARTY at Hasleby Park; of which it is equally my intention and delight to make special mention. With slight exceptions, the whole sixteen were upon something like intimate terms with each other; and yet, eight out of this number were evidently assorted, or consorted, so as to make private chit-chat preferable to general discussion. The Squire exerted himself to the utmost, as did his excellent lady, to diffuse conversation generally over the whole table; the former challenging liberally, but getting scarcely * The Ancient Concert, usually abbreviated as above.

any acceptance of his challenges from the couples

who have been noticed at the conclusion of the last chapter.

The deep-toned voice of Dr. Glossop made up, however, for the partial silence of others. That learned and readily-armed divine flew at all topics, and strove to carry away all the glory attendant upon their discussion. The vicar was rather earnest than loud: the curate, rather anxious than communicative. Mr. Clutterbuck maintained his usual taciturn discretion, till some allusion was made to the last edition of Burn's "Ecclesiastical Law”—when Dr. Glossop, coming forward with what he was pleased to call the Phlosboterotondodon of the argument, was floored by his unsparing antagonist in an instant.

Sir Joseph Proudfoot, as was his wont, maintained an erect position, exercising rather his palate than his tongue-enlarging in cheek and chest at every course upon the table slightly smacking his lips at the old brown sherry of Messrs. Shaw and Maxwell, and once condescending to smile when Miss Jemima Ponton praised the shape of the horse (emblem of the Guelphic Order of Knighthood) dangling at his breast. Lady Proudfoot sat by the Squire's left hand; and Mrs. Cranmer at his right-at the bottom of the table. "Come," said the Squire to each of the ladies, "shall we make a