The dinner was abundant, and its deficiency in setting off was but little observed where all the guests were kindly disposed. In fact that paltry criticism which is the terror and scourge of a country neighbourhood, is much oftener the offspring of stupor than malevolence. Keep a company alive, and they will seldom be able to tell whether your damask is of Scotch or Hamburgh manufacture, your china, Indian or Worcester, your glass, cut or plain. People only ask to be happy, and how this is accomplished is never enquired into; but if tongues are not employed eyes will be busy. Miss Ferret was aware of this, and her vigilance was unremitting. The boldest stroke, and one at which Sir Roger's mind at first revolted, succeeded to admiration, and green gooseberry wine in long necked bottles passed muster for sparkling champagne.
The trick had been played at a great race dinner, and Miss Ferret's convincing argument for making an experiment of a like nature at Colbrook, was contained in the following laconicism, "what has been, may be." Sir Roger succumbed, and no one detected the fraud. "Depend upon it," said Miss Ferret, "that all the French wines are made at home, and you are no greater cheat than your wine merchant."
The young danced, the elders played whist, carriages were heard rolling in the court, the party dispersed, and as all things must, sooner or later, come to a conclusion, thus ended the wedding-day, and Miss Ferret had laid the plan of another ere the sun was set.
CHAPTER IV.
"——What now remains
But that once more we tempt the wat'ry plains,
And wandering homewards, seek our safety hence."
Dryden.
Amongst the many contested questions which perplex conversation, and seem destined to remain undecided, is comparison between the sum of happiness derivable by those who are easily pleased, from frequently recurring and commonly procurable resources, and that resulting from the seldom tasted but vivid raptures of the fastidious, who, too refined for average gratification, find life a desert, in which, like "angel visits few and long between," the thinly scattered spangles of verdure glow with intensity of freshness amid surrounding gloom. We confess that our own minds suffered vacillation upon this important topic, till, having witnessed the every-day felicity of Henbury Lodge, we were enabled to cast the make-weight of its beau rivant into the scale of "little things."
As a flat road, however, admits of quick driving, we shall not detain the reader unmercifully in describing a scene which presented no alterations of light and shade, no moral vicissitudes of hill and dale, to vary the landscape; but satisfy ourselves with a short sketch of connubial contentment in a welcome-home to Mr. and Mrs. Hartland, who after a brief aberration from their domestic settlement, returned to the delights of clipped hedges, rolled terrace, and trim bowers.