ncle, assuring him of the Blake interest, and adding that for
propriety's sake I should defer my departure for a day or two longer.

This done, with a heart lightened of its load and in high spirits at my
cleverness, I descended to the drawing-room. Here a very large party were
already assembled, and at every opening of the door a new relay of Blakes,
Burkes, and Bodkins was introduced. In the absence of the host, Sir George
Dashwood was "making the agreeable" to the guests, and shook hands with
every new arrival with all the warmth and cordiality of old friendship.
While thus he inquired for various absent individuals, and asked most
affectionately for sundry aunts and uncles not forthcoming, a slight
incident occurred which by its ludicrous turn served to shorten the long
half-hour before dinner. An individual of the party, a Mr. Blake, had, from
certain peculiarities of face, obtained in his boyhood the sobriquet of
"Shave-the-wind." This hatchet-like conformation had grown with his growth,
and perpetuated upon him a nickname by which alone was he ever spoken of
among his friends and acquaintances; the only difference being that as he
came to man's estate, brevity, that soul of wit, had curtailed the epithet
to mere "Shave." Now, Sir George had been hearing frequent reference made
to him always by this name, heard him ever so addressed, and perceived him
to reply to it; so that when he was himself asked by some one what sport he
had found that day among the woodcocks, he answered at once, with a bow of
very grateful acknowledgment, "Excellent, indeed; but entirely owing to
where I was placed in the copse. Had it not been for Mr. Shave there--"

I need not say that the remainder of his speech, being heard on all sides,
became one universal shout of laughter, in which, to do him justice, the
excellent Shave himself heartily joined. Scarcely were the sounds of mirth
lulled into an apparent calm, when the door opened and the host and hostess
appeared. Mrs. Blake advanced in all the plenitude of her charms, arrayed
in crimson satin, sorely injured in its freshness by a patch of grease
upon the front about the same size and shape as the continent of Europe in
Arrowsmith's Atlas. A swan's-down tippet covered her shoulders; massive
bracelets ornamented her wrists; while from her ears descended two Irish
diamond ear-rings, rivalling in magnitude and value the glass pendants of
a lustre. Her reception of her guests made ample am