apitulating in detail.

"The husbands, brothers, and lovers had come in, and the scene was
redolent of gayety. When Mary made her appearance, there was a
moment's pause, till she was conducted to the side of the doctor;
when, raising his hand, he invoked a grace upon the loaded board.

"Unrestrained gayeties followed. Groups of young men and maidens
chatted together, and all the gallantries of the times were enacted.
Serious matrons commented on the cake, and told each other high and
particular secrets in the culinary art which they drew from remote
family archives. One might have learned in that instructive assembly
how best to keep moths out of blankets, how to make fritters of Indian
corn undistinguishable from oysters, how to bring up babies by hand,
how to mend a cracked teapot, how to take out grease from a brocade,
how to reconcile absolute decrees with free will, how to make five
yards of cloth answer the purpose of six, and how to put down the
Democratic party.

"Miss Prissy was in her glory; every bow of her best cap was alive
with excitement, and she presented to the eyes of the astonished
Newport gentry an animated receipt book. Some of the information she
communicated, indeed, was so valuable and important that she could not
trust the air with it, but whispered the most important portions in a
confidential tone. Among the crowd, Cerinthy Ann's theological admirer
was observed in deeply reflective attitude; and that high-spirited
young lady added further to his convictions of the total depravity of
the species by vexing and discomposing him in those thousand ways in
which a lively, ill-conditioned young woman will put to rout a
serious, well-disposed young man, comforting herself with the
reflection that by and by she would repent of all her sins in a lump
together.

"Vain, transitory splendours! Even this evening, so glorious, so heart
cheering, so fruitful in instruction and amusement, could not last
forever. Gradually the company broke up; the matrons mounted soberly
on horseback behind their spouses, and Cerinthy consoled her clerical
friend by giving him an opportunity to read her a lecture on the way
home, if he found the courage to do so.

"Mr. and Mrs. Marvyn and Candace wound their way soberly homeward;
the doctor returned to his study for nightly devotions; and before
long sleep settled down on the brown cottage.

"'I'll tell you what, Cato,' said Candace, before composing herself to
sleep,