“Over-head unexceptionable; the other extremity detestable. And with such distress as there is, old Carraways might have hired all the workhouse cheap, to weep in the highway. Such very queer dust, too!” and Basil smacks his lips. “Not at all the Rotten Bow flavour. Full of sand! Agatha, duck, keep your mouth shut; or you’ll be turned into an hour-glass.”

“There, now, Basil, set your spurs to your gallant steed like a good boy, and run away,” says Monica.

“A wonderful animal, sir,” observes Basil confidentially to Mr. Jericho. “Hallo! not well, sir?”

“Well? Admirable! Never so well,” says Jericho, in a cold voice, and with a dim smile.

“’Pon my life, you look so wire-drawn and so thin! Blessed if you don’t look as if you’d been locked out last night, and dragged to bed through the keyhole.”

“Basil! My child!” cries Mrs. Jericho; and Jericho smiles, but dimmer than before.

“Extraordinary animal, sir,” says Basil, thinking it best to return to the horse. “Only three hundred. I’m satisfied, and shall buy him. Only three hundred. Cheap, my honourable sir—cheap for a water-cart. Look at him, sir. None of your horses, put together with skewers for a day out, to tumble to the dogs as soon as they get home: shall, certainly, lay down the loyalty for him. Take care of yourself, my good sir; men like you can’t be spared. Good bye, we shall meet on the daisies.”

“Bye, bye,” says Agatha. “Don’t forget Bessy.”

“Upon my life, you girls look too nice,—you do, indeed;—too nice,” says Basil, holding in his horse.

“Oh!” cry the young ladies, laughing and shaking their heads. “Oh!”

“You do, indeed. Too nice to marry, and not nice enough[Pg 61] to eat;” and Basil gives his horse his head, and bounds forward, followed by a groom, mounted worthy of the new master he attends. Mrs. Jericho smiles proudly, and looks at her husband; who industriously tries, and at length succeeds, to smile in return.

[Pg 61]

And now the great crowd of guests is set down at the Hall; and now, we invite the reader to enter the house, to stray among the grounds, and to enjoy the large hospitality that from every nook and corner of the place cries—“Eat, drink, and be merry.”

CHAPTER 

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