s if he had been left alone in his corner; which is probably
more than could have been said of any other human being under similar
circumstances.

At the end of the third set, supper was announced; and the party,
pairing off like turtles, adjourned to the supper-room. The squire was
now the happiest of mortal men, and the little butler the most
laborious. The centre of the largest table was decorated with a model
of Snowdon, surmounted with an enormous artificial leek, the leaves of
angelica, and the bulb of blancmange. A little way from the summit was
a tarn, or mountain-pool, supplied through concealed tubes with an
inexhaustible flow of milk-punch, which, dashing in cascades down the
miniature rocks, fell into the more capacious lake below, washing the
mimic foundations of Headlong Hall. The reverend doctor handed Miss
Philomela to the chair most conveniently situated for enjoying this
interesting scene, protesting he had never before been sufficiently
impressed with the magnificence of that mountain, which he now
perceived to be well worthy of all the fame it had obtained.

"Now, when they had eaten and were satisfied," Squire Headlong called
on Mr Chromatic for a song; who, with the assistance of his two
accomplished daughters, regaled the ears of the company with the
following

TERZETTO[13.2]

Grey Twilight, from her shadowy hill,
Discolours Nature's vernal bloom,
And sheds on grove, and field, and rill,
One placid tint of deepening gloom.

The sailor sighs 'mid shoreless seas,
Touched by the thought of friends afar,
As, fanned by ocean's flowing breeze,
He gazes on the western star.

The wanderer hears, in pensive dream,
The accents of the last farewell,
As, pausing by the mountain stream,
He listens to the evening bell.

This terzetto was of course much applauded; Mr Milestone observing,
that he thought the figure in the last verse would have been more
picturesque, if it had been represented with its arms folded and its
back against a tree; or leaning on its staff, with a cockle-shell in
its hat, like a pilgrim of ancient times.

Mr Chromatic professed himself astonished that a gentleman of genuine
modern taste, like Mr Milestone, should consider the words of a song
of any consequence whatever, seeing that they were at the best only a
species of pegs, for the more convenient suspension of crotchets and
quavers. This remark drew on