n did
the three Fishes of his hereditary scutcheon. He felt himself perfectly
at home with his entertainers; taking care, however, that his attentions
were so equally divided between the three daughters as to prevent all
suspicion of a particular preference. "There is safety in numbers,"
thought he, "especially in odd numbers. The three Graces never married,
neither did the nine Muses."

"I presume, young ladies, that you are fond of music," said Kenelm,
glancing at the piano.

"Yes, I love it dearly," said the eldest girl, speaking for the others.

Quoth the farmer, as he heaped the stranger's plate with boiled beef and
carrots, "Things are not what they were when I was a boy; then it was
only great tenant-farmers who had their girls taught the piano, and
sent their boys to a good school. Now we small folks are for helping our
children a step or two higher than our own place on the ladder."

"The schoolmaster is abroad," said the son, with the emphasis of a sage
adding an original aphorism to the stores of philosophy.

"There is, no doubt, a greater equality of culture than there was in
the last generation," said Kenelm. "People of all ranks utter the same
commonplace ideas in very much the same arrangements of syntax. And in
proportion as the democracy of intelligence extends--a friend of mine,
who is a doctor, tells me that complaints formerly reserved to what is
called aristocracy (though what that word means in plain English I don't
know) are equally shared by the commonalty--_tic-douloureux_ and other
neuralgic maladies abound. And the human race, in England at least, is
becoming more slight and delicate. There is a fable of a man who, when
he became exceedingly old, was turned into a grasshopper. England
is very old, and is evidently approaching the grasshopper state of
development. Perhaps we don't eat as much beef as our forefathers did.
May I ask you for another slice?"

Kenelm's remarks were somewhat over the heads of his audience. But
the son, taking them as a slur upon the enlightened spirit of the age,
coloured up and said, with a knitted brow, "I hope, sir, that you are
not an enemy to progress."

"That depends: for instance, I prefer staying here, where I am well off,
to going farther and faring worse."

"Well said!" cried the farmer.

Not deigning to notice that interruption, the son took up Kenelm's reply
with a sneer, "I suppose you mean that it is to fare worse, if you march
with the time.