"A most delightful proposal!" cried Rosalind; "and if the birds should happen to introduce a jig movement, we can practise our dancing steps as we go along."
"Wait half an hour for me," said Charles, rising to accompany his father, "and I will join your party. Let us go to the Pebble-Ford, Rosalind; and you shall all three drink my health out of that dear pool beside it, that Ros.... Miss Torrington—admired so much the other day."
"No, no, we can't wait a moment, Char.... Mr. Mowbray—" said Rosalind. "Come, dear girls, let us be gone instantly."
"Not wait for him on his birthday!" cried Helen. "But you are not in earnest, Rosalind?"
"How you do labour and toil to spoil that man, Helen!" said Miss Torrington, raising her hands and eyes as he left the room. "It is a great blessing for him that I have come amongst you! If any thing can save him from utter destruction, it is I shall do it."
Charles however was waited for, and that for at least three times the period he had named; but he came at last, and the walk was taken, and the birds sang, and the brook sparkled, and the health was drunk cordially, even by Rosalind; and the gay party returned in time to see the first carriage approach, bearing guests invited to be present at the tenants' dinner in the Park. Their morning toilet was hastily readjusted, as another and another equipage rolled onwards towards the house; and then the business of the day began. Lords and ladies, knights and squires, yeomen and peasants, were seen riding, driving, running, and walking through the spacious park in all directions. Then followed the rustic fête and the joyous carouse, in which the name of Charles Mowbray made the welkin ring; and then, the company having retreated to the house, came the hurried steps of a dozen lady's-maids hastening to their various scenes of action, and valets converting closets of all sorts and sizes into dressing-rooms for unnumbered gentlemen; and then the banquet, and then the coffee and the short repose—and then the crowded ball.
All this came and went in order, and without the intervention of a single circumstance that might mar the enjoyment of a day long set apart for happiness, and which began and ended more exactly according to the wishes and intentions of those who arranged its festivities than often falls out at galas planned by mortals.
At five o'clock on the following morning the joyous din at length sank into silence, and as many as hospitable ingenuity could find room for lay down at Mowbray Park to enjoy again in dreams the untarnished gaiety of that happy day.