nt just now was, that having had,
about that time, a good deal of talk with Puddock upon the particular
subject of duelling, he had, as she thought, taken very kindly to her
way of thinking; and she had a dozen times in the last month, cited
Puddock to the general; and so his public defection was highly
mortifying and intolerable.

So Puddock, in a not unpleasant fuss and excitement, sat down in his
dressing-gown before the glass; and while Moore the barber, with tongs,
powder, and pomade, repaired the dilapidations of the day, he
contemplated his own plump face, not altogether unapprovingly, and
thought with a charming anticipation of the adventures of the
approaching evening.

CHAPTER XVIII.

RELATING HOW THE GENTLEMEN SAT OVER THEIR CLARET, AND HOW DR. STURK SAW
A FACE.

Puddock drove up the avenue of gentlemanlike old poplars, and over the
little bridge, and under the high-arched bowers of elms, walled up at
either side with evergreens, and so into the court-yard of Belmont.
Three sides of a parellelogram, the white old house being the largest,
and offices white and in keeping, but overgrown with ivy, and opening to
yards of their own on the other sides, facing one another at the flanks,
and in front a straight Dutch-like moat, with a stone balustrade running
all along from the garden to the bridge, with great stone flower pots
set at intervals, the shrubs and flowers of which associated themselves
in his thoughts with beautiful Gertrude Chattesworth, and so were
wonderfully bright and fragrant. And there were two swans upon the
water, and several peacocks marching dandily in the court-yard; and a
grand old Irish dog, with a great collar, and a Celtic inscription,
dreaming on the steps in the evening sun.

It was always pleasant to dine at Belmont. Old General Chattesworth was
so genuinely hospitable and so really glad to see you, and so hilarious
himself, and so enjoying. A sage or a scholar, perhaps, might not have
found a great deal in him. Most of his stories had been heard before.
Some of them, I am led to believe, had even been printed. But they were
not very long, and he had a good natured word and a cordial smile for
everybody; and he had a good cook, and explained his dishes to those
beside him, and used sometimes to toddle out himself to the cellar in
search of a curious bon-bouche; and of nearly every bin in it he had a
little anecdote or a pedigree to relate. And his laugh was frequent and