A HUNDRED YEARS AFTER
(AT THE CLOUGHS’ DINNER-TABLE, SEPT. 10, 1990.)
“It’s a capital idea! the thing ought to be commemorated. At any rate, we can give a little dinner in honour of it. Whom shall we have?”
“Dr. and Mrs. Oldcastle, and Harry’s form-master, young Mr. Hilyard, and his wife, will represent school-work; we shall stand for parents in general; and with Dr. and Mrs. Brenton for our medical advisers, and the Dean and Mrs. Priestly to witness for things spiritual, we shall be quite a ‘representative gathering.’ Will my list do?”
“Famously! Couldn’t be better. We all know the subject and each other. I shouldn’t wonder if we have some good things said.”
Mr. Clough was a City merchant, as had been his fathers before him for four or five generations; he was reputed wealthy, and was a rich man, but one who held his wealth as a public trust, reserving for personal uses only what should keep his family in refined and comfortable living. Not that there was much virtue in this, for he, and others like him, held in aversion luxurious living, and whatever savoured of the “barbarous opulence” of earlier days. Dr. Oldcastle was the head-master of an old-established foundation school; for the remaining guests they have been sufficiently introduced by Mrs. Clough.
During the dinner there was the usual gay talk, and some light handling of graver subjects until the ladies retired. Then—
“I wonder, gentlemen, has it occurred to you why my wife and I have been so pertinacious in trying to get you here to-night?”
Every one’s countenance showed that he was struck by an interesting recollection.
“A little circumstance connected with this room, and a certain date that I fear I may have mentioned more than once or twice?”