nter a comfortable
dining-room, where the closely-drawn red curtains glow with the double
light of fire and candle, where glass and silver are glittering on the
pure damask, and a soup-tureen gives a hint of the fragrance that will
presently rush out to inundate your hungry senses, and prepare them, by
the delicate visitation of atoms, for the keen gusto of ampler contact!
Especially if you have confidence in the dinner-giving capacity of your
host--if you know that he is not a man who entertains grovelling views of
eating and drinking as a mere satisfaction of hunger and thirst, and,
dead to all the finer influences of the palate, expects his guest to be
brilliant on ill-flavoured gravies and the cheapest Marsala. Mr. Ely was
particularly worthy of such confidence, and his virtues as an Amphitryon
had probably contributed quite as much as the central situation of Milby
to the selection of his house as a clerical rendezvous. He looks
particularly graceful at the head of his table, and, indeed, on all
occasions where he acts as president or moderator: he is a man who seems
to listen well, and is an excellent amalgam of dissimilar ingredients.

At the other end of the table, as 'Vice', sits Mr. Fellowes, rector and
magistrate, a man of imposing appearance, with a mellifluous voice and
the readiest of tongues. Mr. Fellowes once obtained a living by the
persuasive charms of his conversation, and the fluency with which he
interpreted the opinions of an obese and stammering baronet, so as to
give that elderly gentleman a very pleasing perception of his own wisdom.
Mr. Fellowes is a very successful man, and has the highest character
everywhere except in his own parish, where, doubtless because his
parishioners happen to be quarrelsome people, he is always at fierce feud
with a farmer or two, a colliery proprietor, a grocer who was once
churchwarden, and a tailor who formerly officiated as clerk.

At Mr. Ely's right hand you see a very small man with a sallow and
somewhat puffy face, whose hair is brushed straight up, evidently with
the intention of giving him a height somewhat less disproportionate to
his sense of his own importance than the measure of five feet three
accorded him by an oversight of nature. This is Rev. Archibald Duke, a
very dyspeptic and evangelical man, who takes the gloomiest view of
mankind and their prospects, and thinks the immense sale of the 'Pickwick
Papers,' recently completed, one of the strongest