ay as well come it strong,
and get in the county."

True, that he was personally acquainted with very few of what are called
county families. But still, when a man makes himself a mark in a
large town, and can return one of the members whom that town sends to
parliament; and when, moreover, that man proposes to give some superb
and original entertainment, in which the old can eat and the young can
dance, there is no county in the island that has not families enow
who will be delighted by an invitation from THAT MAN. And so Richard,
finding that, as the thing got talked of, the dean's lady, and Mrs.
Pompley, and various other great personages, took the liberty to suggest
that Squire this, and Sir somebody that, would be so pleased if they
were asked, fairly took the bull by the horns, and sent out his cards to
Park, Hall, and Rectory, within a circumference of twelve miles. He met
with but few refusals, and he now counted upon five hundred guests.

"In for a penny in for a pound," said Mr. Richard Avenel. "I wonder
what Mrs. M'Catchley will say?" Indeed, if the whole truth must be
known,--Mr. Richard Avenel not only gave that dejeune dansant in honour
of Mrs. M'Catchley, but he had fixed in his heart of hearts upon that
occasion (when surrounded by all his splendour, and assisted by the
seductive arts of Terpsichore and Bacchus) to whisper to Mrs. M'Catchley
those soft words which--but why not here let Mr. Richard Avenel use his
own idiomatic and unsophisticated expression? "Please the pigs, then,"
said Mr. Avenel to himself, "I shall pop the question!"

CHAPTER XVII.

The Great Day arrived at last; and Mr. Richard Avenel, from his
dressing-room window, looked on the scene below as Hannibal or Napoleon
looked from the Alps on Italy. It was a scene to gratify the thought
of conquest, and reward the labours of ambition. Placed on a little
eminence stood the singers from the mountains of the Tyrol, their
high-crowned hats and filigree buttons and gay sashes gleaming in the
sun. Just seen from his place of watch, though concealed from the casual
eye, the Hungarian musicians lay in ambush amidst a little belt of
laurels and American shrubs. Far to the right lay what had once been
called horresco referens the duckpond, where--"Dulce sonant tenui
gutture carmen aves." But the ruthless ingenuity of the head-artificer
had converted the duck-pond into a Swiss lake, despite grievous wrong
and sorrow to the assuetum innocu