and another of her daughters, were there. Reginald found himself placed, as usual, beside Mrs Elizabeth; and the old lady had chosen her chair at the Squire's end of the table, while Sir Charles and Mr Collins were near Miss Dalton at the head of it.

The Squire himself was rather out of humour; for though it was the first day he had dined out of his own room for more than a week, he was still far from feeling quite well, and the number of his party gave him some annoyance. Besides, he was, or thought himself, obliged to keep up conversation with Lady Catline, who sat by him; and, to say truth, although her ladyship was, like himself, fond of talking, the Squire and she were two persons that had by no means the same taste as to topics. She bothered him with prosing about new novels of which he had never heard; and when he, in his politeness, made any attempt to introduce Roderick Random, or Peregrine Pickle, she professed total ignorance of any such naughty books. She minced some liberal sentiments, and he was the very bear of Tories. She even dared to insinuate a sneer or two about High-Church; and

if she had trampled with the whole weight of her heel upon the Squire's cloth shoe, she could scarcely have offended in a quarter more painfully sensitive. To sum up the whole of her demerits, she was a Blue-stocking—and a Whig,—and nobody could tell who was her grandfather; and she was a blowsy-faced little woman-and she eat lustily of half-a-dozen different dishes-and her hair was reddish-and her hands and ears were big-and the Squire had never liked her. Perhaps Methodism was the only thing he thoroughly despised that could not be laid to her charge; and perhaps, considering the style of his opinions as to the relative duties of the female sex, Sir Charles Catline's wife was rather more disagreeable to him for presuming to keep free of that particular blemish, than she could have been for wearing it between her eyes. The Vicar, who supported this lady on the other side, appeared to be not much more taken with her than his kinsman.

Throughout the whole of the evening, Reginald could not help making observation, that his father and Sir Charles Catline never, by any ac

cident, exchanged words; but when the gentlemen rejoined the ladies in the drawing-room, which was a very long and spacious apartment, three distinct parties were formed, and these seemed to have about as little to do with each other, as if they had been ten miles asunder. The Squire sat in his arm-chair by the fire-side, with Reginald, the Vicar, and Mrs Betty, close to him. The Baronet, Miss Dalton, Barbara Catline, and the Curate, kept possession of the table on which tea had been served; while Frederick Chisney found his amusement between Lady Catline and her second daughter Julia, quizzing the one, flirting a little with the other, and now and then suffering himself to be beat at trou-madame. The last was certainly the gayest set of the three; perhaps the only one amongst all the members of which the announcement of Sir Charles's carriage was an unwelcome

Occurrence.

The moment they were gone, the Squire ordered supper; and, when he found that the two young men must really set off on their journey southward in the morning, and the Vicar also for Westmoreland, a huge jorum of mulled port was called

in to alleviate the affliction of the parting. But even after a second edition of the tankard, the kind old gentleman could not go to his bed until he had made them all promise to come and take farewell of him ere they started.

CHAPTER XII.

As the Vicar and Reginald were walking down the long gallery towards their bed-chambers, and talking together as they went, Mrs Elizabeth, who had retired from the party below stairs some considerable time earlier, made her appearance in her night-cap and a wide dimity dressing gown, at the door of an apartment, in which a brilliant fire was blazing. The Vicar was halting his pace, for he was naturally unwilling to contaminate, even by a passing glance, the vestal penetralia of the old spinster; but she stood firm to her post, and beckoning them onwards with her finger, said, with a slight mixture of mystery, and of roguery too, in the tone of her whisper," Your black cloth will take no spot, cousin John, although you should venture yourself for a moment-Come-come hither-I