iate pain wore off I was pretty sound again, and managed, with
the assistance of my new acquaintance's arm, to make a very good walk
of it. So we plodded on quite sociably towards the Hall, and my friend
took leave of me at the farm with a polite bow and a sort of
hesitating manner that most shy men possess, and which would lead one
to infer they have always got something more to say that never is
said. I knew I should be well scolded if I avowed my accident to any
of the family; besides, I did not quite fancy facing all the inquiries
as to how I got home, and Cousin Amelia's sneers about errant damsels
and wandering knights; so I stole quietly up to my room, bathed my
foot in eau-de-Cologne, and remained _perdue_ till dinner-time, in
despite of repeated messages from my aunts and the arrival of Cousin
John.

People may talk about country pleasures and country duties and all the
charms of country life; but it appears to me that a good many things are
done under the titles of pleasure and duty which belong in reality to
neither; and that those who live entirely in the country inflict on
themselves a great variety of unnecessary disagreeables, as they lose a
great many of its chief delights. Of all receipts for weariness commend
me to a dinner-party of country neighbours by _daylight_--people who know
each other just well enough to have opposite interests and secret
jealousies--who arrive ill at ease in their smart dresses, to sit through
a protracted meal with hot servants and forced conversation, till one
young lady on her promotion being victimized at the pianoforte enables
them to yawn unobserved; and welcome ten o'clock brings round the
carriage and tipsy coachman, in order that they may enter on their long,
dark, dreary drive home through lanes and by-ways, which is only
endurable from the consideration that the annual ordeal has been
accomplished, and that they need not do it again till this time next
year.

There was a dinner-party at Dangerfield regularly once a month, and
this was the day. Aunt Horsingham was great on these occasions,
astonishing the neighbours as much with her London dresses as did
Cousin Amelia with her London manners. We all assembled a few minutes
earlier than usual in the drawing-room, so as to be ready to receive
our guests, and great was the infliction on poor Aunt Deborah and my
humble self. How they trooped in, one after another! Sir Brian and
Lady Banneret and Master Banneret and two