Gryll Grange

Questions which can only be answered by the parrotings of a memory crammed to disease with all sorts of heterogeneous diet can form no test of genius, taste, judgment, or natural capacity. Competitive Examination takes for its norma: 'It is better to learn many things ill than one thing well'; or rather: 'It is better to learn to gabble about everything than to understand anything.' This is not the way to discover the wood of which Mercuries are made. I have been told that this precious scheme has been borrowed from China: a pretty fountain-head for moral and political improvement: and if so, I may say, after Petronius: 'This windy and monstrous loquacity has lately found its way to us from Asia, and like a pestilential star has blighted the minds of youth otherwise rising to greatness.'{1}

Lord Curryfin. There is something to be said on behalf of applying the same tests, addressing the same questions, to everybody.

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. I shall be glad to hear what can be said on that behalf.

Lord Curryfin (after a pause). 'Mass,' as the second grave-digger says in Hamlet, 'I cannot tell.'

A chorus of laughter dissolved the sitting.

CHAPTER XX

ALGERNON AND MORGANA—OPPORTUNITY AND REPENTANCE—THE FOREST IN WINTER

The winter set in early. December began with intense frost. Mr. Falconer, one afternoon, entering the inner drawing-room, found Miss Gryll alone. She was reading, and on the entrance of her visitor, laid down her book. He hoped he had not interrupted her in an agreeable occupation. 'To observe romantic method,' we shall give what passed between them with the Christian names of the speakers.

Morgana. I am only reading what I have often read before, Orlando Innamorato; and I was at the moment occupied with a passage about the enchantress from whom my name was borrowed. You are aware that enchantresses are in great favour here.

Algernon. Circe and Gryllus, and your name, sufficiently show that. And not your name only, but——I should like to see the passage, and should be still better pleased if you would read it to me.

Morgana. It is where Orlando, who had left Morgana sleeping by the fountain, returns to seek the enchanted key, by which alone he can liberate his friends.

Algernon. I remember the passage well. The beautiful Fata, dancing and singing by the fountain, presents a delightful picture.

Morgana. Then, you know, Orlando, who had missed his opportunity of seizing the golden forelock while she was sleeping, pursues her a long while in vain through rocky deserts, La Penitenza following him with a scourge. The same idea was afterwards happily worked out by Machiavelli in his Capitolo del Occasion.

Algernon. You are fond of Italian literature? You read the language beautifully. I observe you have read from the original poem, and not from Bemi's rifacciamento.

Morgana. I prefer the original. It is more simple, and more in earnest. Bemi's playfulness is very pleasant, and his exordiums are charming; and in many instances he has improved the poetry. Still, I think he has less than the original of what are to me the great charms of poetry, truth and simplicity. Even the greater antiquity of style has its peculiar appropriateness to the subject. And Bojardo seems to have more faith in his narrative than Berni. I go on with him with ready credulity, where Berni's pleasantry interposes a doubt.

Algernon. You think that in narratives, however wild and romantic, the poet should write as if he fully believed in the truth of his own story.

Morgana. I do; and I think so in reference to all narratives, not to poetry only. What a dry skeleton is the history of the early ages of Rome, told by one who believes nothing that the Romans believed! Religion pervades every step of the early Roman history; and in a great degree down at least to the Empire; but, because their religion is not our religion, we pass over the supernatural part of the matter in silence, or advert to it in a spirit of contemptuous incredulity. We do not give it its proper place, nor present it in its proper colours, as a cause in the production of great effects. Therefore, I like to read Livy, and I do not like to read Niebuhr.

Algernon. May I ask if you read Latin?

Morgana. I do; sufficiently to derive great pleasure from it. Perhaps, after this confession, you will not wonder that I am a spinster.

Algernon. So far, that I think it would tend to make you fastidious in your choice. Not that you would be less sought by any who would be worthy your attention. For I am told you have had many suitors, and have rejected them all in succession. And have you not still many, and among them one very devoted lover, who would bring you title as well as fortune? A very amiable person, too, though not without a comic side to his character.

Morgana. I do not well know. He so far differs from all my preceding suitors that in every one of them I found the presence of some quality that displeased me, or the absence of some which would have pleased me: the want, in the one way or the other, of that entire congeniality in taste and feeling which I think essential to happiness in marriage. He has so strong a desire of pleasing, and such power of acquisition and assimilation, that I think a woman truly attached to him might mould him to her mind. Still, I can scarcely tell why, he does not complete my idealities. They say, Love is his own avenger: and perhaps I shall be punished by finding my idealities realised in one who will not care for me.

Algernon. I take that to be impossible.

Morgana blushed, held down her head, and made no reply. Algernon looked at her in silent admiration. A new light seemed to break in on him. Though he had had so many opportunities of forming a judgment on the point, it seemed to strike him for the first time with irresistible conviction that he had never before heard such a sweet voice, nor seen such an expressive and intelligent countenance. And in this way they continued like two figures in a tableau vivant, till the entrance of other parties broke the spell which thus had fixed them in their positions.

A few minutes more, and their destinies might have been irrevocably fixed. But the interruption gave Mr. Falconer the opportunity of returning again to his Tower, to consider, in the presence of the seven sisters, whether he should not be in the position of a Roman, who was reduced to the dilemma of migrating without his household deities, or of suffering his local deities to migrate without him; and whether he could sit comfortably on either of the horns of this dilemma. He felt that he could not. On the other hand, could he bear to see the fascinating Morgana metamorphosed into Lady Curryfin? The time had been when he had half wished it, as the means of restoring him to liberty. He felt now that when in her society he could not bear the idea; but he still thought that in the midst of his domestic deities he might become reconciled to it.

He did not care for horses, nor keep any for his own use. But as time and weather were not always favourable to walking, he had provided for himself a comfortable travelling-chariot, without a box to intercept the view, in which, with post-horses after the fashion of the olden time, he performed occasional migrations. He found this vehicle of great use in moving to and fro between the Grange and the Tower; for then, with all his philosophy, Impatience was always his companion: Impatience on his way to the Grange, to pass into the full attraction of the powerful spell by which he was drawn like the fated ship to the magnetic rock in the Arabian Nights: Impatience on his way to the Tower, to find himself again in the 'Regions mild of pure and serene air,' in which the seven sisters seemed to dwell, like Milton's ethereal spirits 'Before the starry threshold of Jove's court.' Here was everything to soothe, nothing to irritate or disturb him: nothing on the spot: but it was with him, as it is with many, perhaps with all: the two great enemies of tranquillity, Hope and Remembrance, would still intrude: not like a bubble and a spectre, as in the beautiful lines of Coleridge:{1}

for the remembrance of Morgana was not a spectre, and the hope of her love, which he cherished in spite of himself, was not a bubble: but their forces were not less disturbing, even in the presence of his earliest and most long and deeply cherished associations.

He did not allow his impatience to require that the horses should be put to extraordinary speed. He found something tranquillising in the movement of a postilion in a smart jacket, vibrating on one horse upwards and downwards, with one invariable regulated motion like the cross-head of a side-lever steam-engine, and holding the whip quietly arched over the neck of the other. The mechanical monotony of the movement seemed less in contrast than in harmony with the profound stillness of the wintry forest: the leafless branches heavy with rime frost and glittering in the sun: the deep repose of nature, broken now and then by the traversing of deer, or the flight of wild birds: highest and loudest among them the long lines of rooks: but for the greater part of the way one long deep silence, undisturbed but by the rolling of the wheels and the iron tinkling of the hoofs on the frozen ground. By degrees he fell into a reverie, and meditated on his last dialogue with Morgana.

'It is a curious coincidence,' he thought, 'that she should have been dwelling in a passage, in which her namesake enchantress inflicted punishment on Orlando for having lost his opportunity. Did she associate Morgana with herself and Orlando with me? Did she intend a graceful hint to me not to lose my opportunity? I seemed in a fair way to seize the golden forelock, if we had not been interrupted. Do I regret that I did not? That is just what I cannot determine. Yet it would be more fitting, that whatever I may do should be done calmly, deliberately, philosophically, than suddenly, passionately, impulsively. One thing is clear to me. It is now or never: this or none. The world does not contain a second Morgana, at least not of mortal race. Well: the opportunity will return. So far, I am not in the predicament in which we left Orlando. I may yet ward off the scourge of La Penitenza?

But his arrival at home, and the sight of the seven sisters, who had all come to the hall-door to greet him, turned his thoughts for awhile into another channel.

He dined at his usual hour, and his two Hebes alternately filled his glass with Madeira. After which the sisters played and sang to him in the drawing-room; and when he had retired to his chamber, had looked on the many portraitures of his Virgin Saint, and had thought by how many charms of life he was surrounded, he composed himself to rest with the reflection: 'I am here like Rasselas in the Happy Valley: and I can now fully appreciate the force of that beautiful chapter: The wants of him who wants nothing?'

CHAPTER XXI

SKATING—PAS DE DEUX ON THE ICE—CONGENIALITY—FLINTS AMONG BONES

The frost continued. The lake was covered over with solid ice. This became the chief scene of afternoon amusement, and Lord Curryfin carried off the honours of the skating. In the dead of the night there came across his memory a ridiculous stave:

and he determined on trying if he could not out-do Mr. Tait.

He thought it would be best to try his experiment without witnesses: and having more than an hour's daylight before breakfast, he devoted that portion of the morning to his purpose. But cutting a nine by itself baffled his skill, and treated him to two or three tumbles, which, however, did not abate his ardour. At length he bethought him of cutting a nine between two eights, and by shifting his feet rapidly at the points of difficulty, striking in and out of the nine to and from the eights on each side. In this he succeeded, and exhibiting his achievement in the afternoon, adorned the surface of the ice with successions of 898, till they amounted to as many sextillions, with their homogeneous sequences. He then enclosed the line with an oval, and returned to the bank through an admiring circle, who, if they had been as numerous as the spectators to the Olympic games, would have greeted him with as loud shouts of triumph as saluted Epharmostus of Opus.{1}

Among the spectators on the bank were Miss Niphet and Mr. MacBorrowdale, standing side by side. While Lord Curryfin was cutting his sextillions, Mr. MacBorrowdale said: 'There is a young gentleman who is capable of anything, and who would shine in any pursuit, if he would keep to it. He shines as it is, in almost everything he takes in hand in private society: there is genius even in his failures, as in the case of the theatrical vases; but the world is a field of strong competition, and affords eminence to few in any sphere of exertion, and to those few rarely but in one.'

Miss Niphet. Before I knew him, I never heard of him but as a lecturer on Fish; and to that he seems to limit his public ambition. In private life, his chief aim seems to be that of pleasing his company. Of course, you do not attach much value to his present pursuit. You see no utility in it.

Mr. MacBorrowdale. On the contrary, I see great utility in it. I am for a healthy mind in a healthy body: the first can scarcely be without the last, and the last can scarcely be without good exercise in pure air. In this way, there is nothing better than skating. I should be very glad to cut eights and nines with his lordship: but the only figure I should tut would be that of as many feet as would measure my own length on the ice.

'Certainly,' she replied: adding to herself: 'I will do anything in my power to please you.'

She equipped herself expeditiously, and started before he was well aware. She was half round the lake before he came up with her. She then took a second start, and completed the circle before he came up with her again. He saw that she was an Atalanta on ice as on turf. He placed himself by her side, slipped her arm through his, and they started together on a second round, which they completed arm-in-arm. By this time the blush-rose bloom which had so charmed him on a former occasion again mantled on her cheeks, though from a different cause, for it was now only the glow of healthful exercise; but he could not help exclaiming, 'I now see why and with what tints the Athenians coloured their statues.'

'Is it clear,' she asked, 'that they did so?'

'I have doubted it before,' he answered, 'but I am now certain that they did.'

In the meantime, Miss Gryll, Miss Ilex, and the Reverend Doctor Opimian had been watching their movements from the bank.

Miss Ilex. I have seen much graceful motion in dancing, in private society and on the Italian stage; and some in skating before to-day; but anything so graceful as that double-gliding over the ice by those two remarkably handsome young persons, I certainly never saw before.

Miss Gryll. Lord Curryfin is unquestionably handsome, and Miss Niphet, especially with that glow on her cheeks, is as beautiful a young woman as imagination can paint. They move as if impelled by a single will. It is impossible not to admire them both.

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. They remind me of the mythological fiction, that Jupiter made men and women in pairs, like the Siamese twins; but in this way they grew so powerful and presumptuous, that he cut them in two; and now the main business of each half is to look for the other; which is very rarely found, and hence so few marriages are happy. Here the two true halves seem to have met.

The doctor looked at Miss Gryll, to see what impression this remark might make on her. He concluded that, if she thought seriously of Lord Curryfin, she would show some symptom of jealousy of Miss Niphet; but she did not. She merely said—

'I quite agree with you, doctor. There is evidently great congeniality between them, even in their respective touches of eccentricity.'

But the doctor's remark had suggested to her what she herself had failed to observe; Lord Curryfin's subsidence from ardour into deference, in his pursuit of herself. She had been so undividedly 'the cynosure of neighbouring eyes,' that she could scarcely believe in the possibility of even temporary eclipse. Her first impulse was to resign him to her young friend. But then appearances might be deceitful. Her own indifference might have turned his attentions into another channel, without his heart being turned with them. She had seen nothing to show that Miss Niphet's feelings were deeply engaged in the question. She was not a coquette; but she would still feel it as a mortification that her hitherto unquestioned supremacy should be passing from her. She had felt all along that there was one cause which would lead her to a decided rejection of Lord Curryfin. But her Orlando had not seized the golden forelock; perhaps he never would. After having seemed on the point of doing so, he had disappeared, and not returned. He was now again within the links of the sevenfold chain, which had bound him from his earliest days. She herself, too, had had, perhaps had still, the chance of the golden forelock in another quarter. Might she not subject her after-life to repentance, if her first hope should fail her when the second had been irrevocably thrown away? The more she contemplated the sacrifice, the greater it appeared. Possibly doubt had given preponderance to her thoughts of Mr. Falconer; and certainly had caused them to repose in the case of Lord Curryfin; but when doubt was thrown into the latter scale also, the balance became more even. She would still give him his liberty, if she believed that he wished it; for then her pride would settle the question; but she must have more conclusive evidence on the point than the Reverend Doctor's metaphorical deduction from a mythological fiction.

In the evening, while the party in the drawing-room were amusing themselves in various ways, Mr. MacBorrowdale laid a drawing on the table, and said, 'Doctor, what should you take that to represent?'

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. An unformed lump of I know not what.

Mr. MacBorrowdale. Not unformed. It is a flint formation of a very peculiar kind.

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. Very peculiar, certainly. Who on earth can have amused himself with drawing a misshapen flint? There must be some riddle in it; some ænigma, as insoluble to me as Aelia Laelia Crispis.{1}

Lord Curryfin, and others of the party, were successively asked their opinions. One of the young ladies guessed it to be the petrifaction of an antediluvian mussel. Lord Curryfin said petrifactions were often siliceous, but never pure silex; which this purported to be. It gave him the idea of an ass's head; which, however, could not by any process have been turned into flint.

Conjecture being exhausted, Mr. MacBorrowdale said, 'It is a thing they call a Celt. The ass's head is somewhat germane to the matter. The Artium Societatis Syndicus Et Socii have determined that it is a weapon of war, evidently of human manufacture. It has been found, with many others like it, among bones of mammoths and other extinct animals, and is therefore held to prove that men and mammoths were contemporaries.'

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. A weapon of war? Had it a handle? Is there a hole for a handle?

Mr. MacBorrowdale. That does not appear.

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. These flints, and no other traces of men, among the bones of mammoths?

Mr. MacBorrowdale. None whatever.

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. What do the Artium Societatis Syndicus Et Socii suppose to have become of the men who produced these demonstrations of high aboriginal art?

Mr. MacBorrowdale. They think these finished specimens of skill in the art of chipping prove that the human race is of greater antiquity than has been previously supposed; and the fact that there is no other relic to prove the position they consider of no moment whatever.

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. Ha! ha! ha! This beats the Elephant in the Moon,{1} which turned out to be a mouse in a telescope. But I can help them to an explanation of what became of these primaeval men-of-arms. They were an ethereal race, and evaporated.

CHAPTER XXII

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES—A SOLILOQUY ON CHRISTMAS

Harry Hedgerow had volunteered to be Mr. Falconer's Mercury during his absences from the Tower, and to convey to him letters and any communications which the sisters might have to make. Riding at a good trot, on a horse more distinguished for strength than grace, he found the shortest days long enough for the purpose of going and returning, with an ample interval for the refreshment of himself and his horse.

While discussing beef and ale in the servants' hall, he heard a good deal of the family news, and many comments on the visitors. From these he collected that there were several young gentlemen especially remarkable for their attention to the young lady of the mansion: that among them were two who were more in her good graces than the others: that one of these was the young gentleman who lived in the Duke's Folly, and who was evidently the favourite: and that the other was a young lord, who was the life and soul of the company, but who seemed to be very much taken with another young lady, who had, at the risk of her own life, jumped into the water and picked him out, when he was nearly being drowned.

This story had lost nothing in travelling. Harry, deducing from all this the conclusion most favourable to his own wishes, determined to take some steps for the advancement of his own love-suit, especially as he had obtained some allies, who were willing to march with him to conquest, like the Seven against Thebes.

The Reverend Doctor Opimian had finished his breakfast, and had just sat down in his library, when he was informed that some young men wished to see him. The doctor was always accessible, and the visitors were introduced. He recognised his friend Harry Hedgerow, who was accompanied by six others. After respectful salutations on their part, and benevolent acceptance on his, Harry, as the only one previously known to the doctor, became spokesman for the deputation.

__Harry Hedgerow.__ You see, sir, you gave me some comfort when I was breaking my heart; and now we are told that the young gentleman at the Folly is going to be married.

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. Indeed! you are better informed than I am.

Harry Hedgerow. Why, it's in everybody's mouth. He passes half his time at Squire Gryll's, and they say it's all for the sake of the young lady that's there: she that was some days at the Folly; that I carried in, when she was hurt in the great storm. I am sure I hope it be true. For you said, if he married, and suitable parties proposed for her sisters, Miss Dorothy might listen to me. I have lived in the hope of that ever since. And here are six suitable parties to propose for her six sisters. That is the long and the short of it.

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. The short of it, at any rate. You speak like a Spartan. You come to the point at once. But why do you come to me? I have no control over the fair damsels.

Harry Hedgerow. Why, no, sir; but you are the greatest friend of the young gentleman. And if you could just say a word for us to him, you see, sir.

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. I see seven notes in the key of A minor, proposing to sound in harmony with the seven notes of the octave above; but I really do not see what I can do in the matter.

Harry Hedgerow. Indeed, sir, if you could only ask the young gentleman if he would object to our proposing to the young ladies.

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. Why not propose to them yourselves? You seem to be all creditable young men.

Harry Hedgerow. I have proposed to Miss Dorothy, you know, and she would not have me; and the rest are afraid. We are all something to do with the land and the wood; farmers, and foresters, and nurserymen, and all that. And we have all opened our hearts to one another. They don't pretend to look above us; but it seems somehow as if they did, and couldn't help it. They are so like young ladies. They daze us, like. Why, if they'd have us, they'd be all in reach of one another. Fancy what a family party there'd be at Christmas. We just want a good friend to put a good foot foremost for us; and if the young gentleman does marry, perhaps they may better themselves by doing likewise.

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. And so you seven young friends have each a different favourite among the seven sisters?

Harry Hedgerow. Why, that's the beauty of it.

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. The beauty of it? Perhaps it is. I suppose there is an agistor {1} among you?

Harry Hedgerow. (after looking at his companions who all shook their heads). I am afraid not. Ought there to be? We don't know what it means.

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. I thought that among so many foresters there might be an agistor. But it is not indispensable. Well, if the young gentleman is going to be married, he will tell me of it. And when he does tell me, I will tell him of you. Have patience. It may all come right.

Harry Hedgerow. Thank ye, sir. Thank ye, sir, kindly.

Which being echoed in chorus by the other six, they took their departure, much marvelling what the reverend doctor could mean by an agistor.

'Upon my word,' said the doctor to himself, 'a very good-looking, respectable set of young men. I do not know what the others may have to say for themselves. They behaved like a Greek chorus. They left their share of the dialogue to the coryphaeus. He acquitted himself well, more like a Spartan than an Athenian, but none the worse for that. Brevity, in this case, is better than rhetoric. I really like that youth. How his imagination dwells on the family party at Christmas. When I first saw him, he was fancying how the presence of Miss Dorothy would gladden his father's heart at that season. Now he enlarges the circle, but it is still the same predominant idea. He has lost his mother. She must have been a good woman, and his early home must have been a happy one. The Christmas hearth would not be so uppermost in his thoughts if it had been otherwise. This speaks well for him and his. I myself think much of Christmas and all its associations. I always dine at home on Christmas Day, and measure the steps of my children's heads on the wall, and see how much higher each of them has risen since the same time last year, in the scale of physical life. There are many poetical charms in the heraldings of Christmas. The halcyon builds its nest on the tranquil sea. "The bird of dawning singeth all night long." I have never verified either of these poetical facts. I am willing to take them for granted. I like the idea of the Yule-log, the enormous block of wood carefully selected long before, and preserved where it would be thoroughly dry, which burned on the old-fashioned hearth. It would not suit the stoves of our modem saloons. We could not burn it in our kitchens, where a small fire in the midst of a mass of black iron, roasts, and bakes, and boils, and steams, and broils, and fries, by a complicated apparatus which, whatever may be its other virtues, leaves no space for a Christmas fire. I like the festoons of holly on the walls and windows; the dance under the mistletoe; the gigantic sausage; the baron of beef; the vast globe of plum-pudding, the true image of the earth, flattened at the poles; the tapping of the old October; the inexhaustible bowl of punch; the life and joy of the old hall, when the squire and his household and his neighbourhood were as one. I like the idea of what has gone, and I can still enjoy the reality of what remains. I have no doubt Harry's father burns the Yule-log, and taps the old October. Perhaps, instead of the beef, he produces a fat pig roasted whole, like Eumaeus, the divine swineherd in the Odyssey. How Harry will burn the Yule-log if he can realise this day-dream of himself and his six friends with the seven sisters! I shall make myself acquainted with the position and characters of these young suitors. To be sure, it is not my business, and I ought to recollect the words of Cicero: "Est enim difficilis cura rerum alienarum: quamquam Terentianus ille Chrêmes humani nihil a se alienum putat."{1} I hold with Chrêmes too. I am not without hope, from some symptoms I have lately seen, that rumour, in the present case, is in a fair way of being right; and if, with the accordance of the young gentleman as key-note, these two heptachords should harmonise into a double octave, I do not see why I may not take my part as fundamental bass.'

CHAPTER XXIII

THE TWO QUADRILLES—POPE'S OMBRE—POETICAL TRUTH TO NATURE—CLEOPATRA

In the meantime Mr. Falconer, after staying somewhat longer than usual at home, had returned to the Grange. He found much the same party as he had left: but he observed, or imagined, that Lord Curryfin was much more than previously in favour with Miss Gryll; that she paid him more marked attention, and watched his conduct to Miss Niphet with something more than curiosity.

Amongst the winter evenings' amusements were two forms of quadrille: the old-fashioned game of cards, and the more recently fashionable dance. On these occasions it was of course a carpet-dance. Now, dancing had never been in Mr. Falconer's line, and though modern dancing, especially in quadrilles, is little more than walking, still in that 'little more' there is ample room for grace and elegance of motion.

Herein Lord Curryfin outshone all the other young men in the circle. He endeavoured to be as indiscriminating as possible in inviting partners: but it was plain to curious observation, especially if a spice of jealousy mingled with the curiosity, that his favourite partner was Miss Niphet. When they occasionally danced a polka, the reverend doctor's mythological theory came out in full force. It seemed as if Nature had preordained that they should be inseparable, and the interior conviction of both, that so it ought to be, gave them an accordance of movement that seemed to emanate from the innermost mind. Sometimes, too, they danced the Minuet de la Cour.

Having once done it, they had been often unanimously requested to repeat it. In this they had no competitors. Miss Gryll confined herself to quadrilles, and Mr. Falconer did not even propose to walk through one with her. When dancing brought into Miss Niphet's cheeks the blush-rose bloom, which had more than once before so charmed Lord Curryfin, it required little penetration to see, through his external decorum, the passionate admiration with which he regarded her. Mr. Falconer remarked it, and, looking round to Miss Gryll, thought he saw the trace of a tear in her eye. It was a questionable glistening: jealousy construed it into a tear. But why should it be there? Was her mind turning to Lord Curryfin? and the more readily because of a newly-perceived obstacle? Had mortified vanity any share in it? No: this was beneath Morgana. Then why was it there? Was it anything like regret that, in respect of the young lord, she too had lost her opportunity? Was he himself blameless in the matter? He had been on the point of declaration, and she had been apparently on the point of acceptance: and instead of following up his advantage, he had been absent longer than usual. This was ill; but in the midst of the contending forces which severally acted on him, how could he make it well? So he sate still, tormenting himself.

In the meantime, Mr. Gryll had got up at a card-table, in the outer, which was the smaller drawing-room, a quadrille party of his own, consisting of himself, Miss Ilex, the Reverend Dr. Opimian, and Mr. MacBorrowdale.

Mr. Gryll. This is the only game of cards that ever pleased me. Once it was the great evening charm of the whole nation. Now, when cards are played at all, it has given place to whist, which, in my younger days, was considered a dry, solemn, studious game, played in moody silence, only interrupted by an occasional outbreak of dogmatism and ill-humour. Quadrille is not so absorbing but that we may talk and laugh over it, and yet is quite as interesting as anything of the kind has need to be.

Miss Ilex. I delight in quadrille. I am old enough to remember when, in mixed society in the country, it was played every evening by some of the party. But Chaque âge a ses plaisirs, son esprit, et ses mours.{1} It is one of the evils of growing old that we do not easily habituate ourselves to changes of custom. The old, who sit still while the young dance and sing, may be permitted to regret the once always accessible cards, which, in their own young days, delighted the old of that generation: and not the old only.

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. There are many causes for the diminished attraction of cards in evening society. Late dinners leave little evening. The old time for cards was the interval between tea and supper. Now there is no such interval, except here and there in out-of-the-way places, where, perhaps, quadrille and supper may still flourish, as in the days of Queen Anne. Nothing was more common in country towns and villages, half-a-century ago, than parties meeting in succession at each other's houses for tea, supper, and quadrille. How popular this game had been, you may judge from Gay's ballad, which represents all classes as absorbed in quadrille.{2} Then the facility of locomotion dissipates, annihilates neighbourhood.