Tinley."

Within five minutes of the receipt of this intelligence the ladies were
on their way to Wilson's farm.

CHAPTER IV

The circle which the ladies of Brookfield were designing to establish
just now, was of this receipt:--Celebrities, London residents, and County
notables, all in their severally due proportions, were to meet, mix, and
revolve: the Celebrities to shine; the Metropolitans to act as
satellites; the County ignoramuses to feel flattered in knowing that all
stood forth for their amusement: they being the butts of the quick-witted
Metropolitans, whom they despised, while the sons of renown were
encouraged to be conscious of their magnanimous superiority over both
sets, for whose entertainment they were ticketed.

This is a pudding indeed! And the contemplation of the skill and energy
required to get together and compound such a Brookfield Pudding,
well-nigh leads one to think the work that is done out of doors a very
inferior business, and, as it were, mere gathering of fuel for the fire
inside. It was known in the neighbourhood that the ladies were preparing
one; and moreover that they had a new kind of plum; in other words, that
they intended to exhibit a prodigy of genius, who would flow upon the
world from Brookfield. To announce her with the invitations, rejecting
the idea of a surprise in the assembly, had been necessary, because there
was no other way of securing Lady Gosstre, who led the society of the
district. The great lady gave her promise to attend: "though," as she
said to Arabella, "you must know I abominate musical parties, and think
them the most absurd of entertainments possible; but if you have anything
to show, that's another matter."

Two or three chosen friends were invited down beforehand to inspect the
strange girl, and say what they thought of her; for the ladies themselves
were perplexed. They had found her to be commonplace: a creature without
ideas and with a decided appetite. So when Tracy Runningbrook, who had
also been a plum in his day, and was still a poet, said that she was
exquisitely comic, they were induced to take the humorous view of the
inexplicable side in the character of Miss Belloni, and tried to laugh at
her eccentricities. Seeing that Mr. Pericles approved of her voice as a
singer, and Tracy Runningbrook let pass her behaviour as a girl, they
conceived that on the whole they were safe in sounding a trumpet loudly.
These gentlemen were connoisseurs,