y own time. And my poor Magnolia, though you spoke some
years--thirty or so--later than my Lady Smart, a countess for aught I
know, you are not so much to blame. Thirty years! what of that? Don't
we, to this hour, more especially in rural districts, encounter among
the old folk, every now and then, one of honest Simon Wagstaff's
pleasantries, which had served merry ladies and gentlemen so long before
that charming compiler, with his 'Large Table Book,' took the matter in
hands. And I feel, I confess, a queer sort of a thrill, not at all
contemptuous--neither altogether sad, nor altogether joyous--but
something pleasantly regretful, whenever one of those quaint and faded
old servants of the mirth of so many dead and buried generations, turns
up in my company.

And now the sun went down behind the tufted trees, and the blue shades
of evening began to deepen, and the merry company flocked into the
King's House, to dance again and drink tea, and make more love, and play
round games, and joke, and sing songs, and eat supper under old Colonel
Stafford's snug and kindly roof-tree.

Dangerfield, who arrived rather late, was now in high chat with Aunt
Becky. She rather liked him and had very graciously accepted a gray
parrot and a monkey, which he had deferentially presented, a step which
called forth, to General Chattesworth's consternation, a cockatoo from
Cluffe, who felt the necessity of maintaining his ground against the
stranger, and wrote off by the next packet to London, in a confounded
passion, for he hated wasting money, about a pelican he had got wind of.
Dangerfield also entered with much apparent interest into a favourite
scheme of Aunt Becky's, for establishing, between Chapelizod and
Knockmaroon, a sort of retreat for discharged gaol-birds of her
selection, a colony, happily for the character and the silver spoons of
the neighbourhood, never eventually established.

It was plain he was playing the frank, good fellow, and aiming at
popularity. He had become one of the club. He played at whist, and only
smiled, after his sort, when his partner revoked, and he lost like a
gentleman. His talk was brisk, and hard, and caustic--that of a
Philistine who had seen the world and knew it. He had the Peerage by
rote, and knew something out-of-the-way, amusing or damnable about every
person of note you could name; and his shrewd gossip had a bouquet its
own, and a fine cynical flavour, which secretly awed and delighted the