his little wife, poor Mary, with her simple Quakerly habits and inexperience of all stars and ribbons, save the stars in the sky, and the plain ribbons in her semi-Quakerly bonnet. Reuben was greatly attached and devoted to her; but, nevertheless, he would occasionally invite the pompous Lord Greenwich, or a French Marquis with a formidable moustache, or a turbaned attaché of the Turkish embassy with a beard and a scimetar, to dine with him on a day when perhaps the rest of the company were all Obadiahs and Rachaels. Mary dreaded a moustache exceedingly, having never seen one at meeting, and having early associated everything hirsute with ideas of wars and tumults. Captain Shunfield was the only hairy man she felt easy in company with, but nobody feared the innocent Captain Shunfield. By-the-bye, he had learned to sing since we met him last; but, as he never sang war-songs, but was more given to serenades and lullabies, his voice rather mitigated than increased the effect of his whiskers.

Pleasant days, however, were spent in 144, Piccadilly. It was the fault of the M. P. himself if there were not more of them, and if they were not always as pleasant as they certainly sometimes were.

The dinners were little, of course, because the kitchen and the dining-room were, as we have seen, on the smallest scale. On one occasion, when Mrs. Medlicott apologised to her friends for having only shrimp sauce with the fish, Mr. Primrose amused them by observing that no excuse was called for, as the house was too small for lobsters. Sometimes, indeed, the dinners, if not too small for the house, were too small for the society. It occasionally happened that a few of the Chichester people would come up to London, either with a petition, or smelling after a place or a job. In the lobby of the House one day, Mr. Medlicott met the two Aldermen, who had supported him so strenuously, and he thought it his duty to entertain them. Perhaps it was; but it was still more clearly his duty, having invited them, to make proper provision for their animal wants. Just think of the dinner he set before Aldermen Codd and Gosling, and at nine o'clock, when their appetites called for barons of beef. potage with a fine name, which they took to be chicken-broth; a mackerel à-la-maître-d'hôtel, absolutely Greek to their worships; a Devonshire chicken au-truffes-why, he might as well have served up a canary; a plat of rognons, which he did not even acquaint them were only Frenchified kidneys ;-in short, a

A

Spanish ham on the sideboard was the only dish in the room that was not either above their understanding, or beneath their notice, and even of that they could only get a Vauxhall slice or two. What was it to them that they were attended by a gentleman in a white waistcoat, a powdered footman, and a black boy? They found themselves much in the situation of reynard at the stork's feast, and retired as soon as they decently could to get something substantial in a tavern; but it was already Sunday morning, and not a tavern was open, or would open their doors for love or for money.

The nine o'clock dinner was itself a piece of affectation. Ministers dined at eight. There was no reason in the world why Mr. Medlicott should not have dined at seven. The Bishop's hour was six, and whenever he heard of his grandson's invitations for nine o'clock, he was most indignant at his airs and assumption, and wondered how any sensible man would dine with the coxcomb. When the Primroses dined in Piccadilly, they did so almost by stealth, generally when the Bishop dined out himself, and always pretending that it was only to tea they were going. The Medlicotts more frequently dined with the Primroses in those days, than the Primroses with the Medlicotts. Hyacinth stood in great awe of his master, and never dared to be absent from his side, or at least out of his reach, for many hours at a time. Besides, another advantage of the dinners in Pall-Mall was that Mrs. Wyndham could now and then manage to come to them.

The favourite nights were those when the House of Lords happened to be sitting, for then poor Blanche would be rash or unnatural enough to confide her son to his regular nurses, and dine with her next-door neighbours, or even accompany them to the opera or a play. It was always, however, with fear and trembling, lest the debate should prematurely close, and the Bishop come thundering home at an irregularly early hour. More than once such surprises happened, and the apprehension of them kept Blanche in a state of nervousness that spoiled half her enjoyment. Upon one occasion, in the middle of a pleasant supper, she was suddenly electrified by the coachman's well-known knock at the door of her own lodgings; she ran from the table with only a shawl over her head, and by her agility and good fortune got into the house before her husband, who, finding her at her post, never dreamed she had been a deserter from her maternal duties.

Reuben was most sincerely anxious to be restored to his grandfather's good graces, but it was a ticklish subject to approach, and he was always doing something, often, no doubt, unavoidably, to increase the difficulties of it. If he could have given up the practice of attending all sorts of fanatical meetings and spouting at them, the Bishop might have been more placable; but Reuben was no longer entirely his own master in this respect. He had become almost a slavish instrument in the hands of the Quakers, in Harvey's especially. With all the appearance of following and idolising, they in reality commanded him; in fact they had found what is vulgarly called his "blind side," and turned the discovery to account most shrewdly and systematically.

The proceedings of the Peace Society were, of all others, the most offensive to Dr. Wyndham, as might have been expected from the muscular common-sense that distinguished him. He could have forgiven Reuben more easily for joining any other association than this; he could have pardoned his coquetting with the Temperance movement, and even his incipient hankerings after the Vegetarians; but the stark-staring nonsense of Friend Wilson, and the soi-disant apostles of Peace, made him so furious, that he sometimes was betrayed into speaking of war with less horror and disgust than was quite becoming in a Christian prelate.

If it had not been for Mrs. Wyndham's strong friendship for Reuben, and her perfect understanding of the best way of managing her husband, it is questionable if the reconciliation, so desirable on all accounts, would ever have taken place.

Reuben and the Bishop met occasionally; sometimes in one or other of the Houses of Parliament, sometimes in the streets; but the Bishop always affected not to see or recognise him, while the sudden aversion of his eyes, or sharp contraction of his brows, accompanied perhaps by a short, dry, little contemptuous cough, showed plainly enough that he knew him perfectly well.

Reuben used often to stand at a window with his aunt and Hyacinth, observing his grandfather getting into his carriage, accompanied by Mrs. Wyndham, the nurse, and the prodigy.

"I think," he said, one day, "I am provided with as curious a set of relations as any man living; only think of that pretty young woman being my grandmother; and my old schoolfellow here, and that brat yonder, being my uncles-uncle Hyacinth and uncle Tom."

Mrs. Primrose fell back on her chair laughing.

His friends then informed Reuben that his grandfather had been incensed beyond measure at his giving his son the ostentatious name of Chichester. He might as well, he said, have called him Sussex. Suppose he had christened his son Salisbury, what would the world have said? It reminded him of the blockhead Barsac wanting him to sleep in a bed with mitres on the curtains. The Bishop repeated the name of Chichester ten times a day to express his contempt for it; but sometimes he pretended to forget it, and called the child Dorchester and Porchester, and even Gatton upon one occasion.

His lordship was to dine that day with the Prime Minister. Reuben proposed that the Primroses should dine with him, and perhaps they might prevail upon Mrs. Wyndham to accompany them. His aunt shook her head once for the first proposition, and twice, still more distinctly, for the second. Hyacinth, however, took a sudden fit of independence, and promised for himself and his wife intrepidly. As to Blanche, the question, as usual, was whether she would venture to quit her post beside uncle Tom's cot for a few hours. Mrs. Primrose first thought she would, then again she thought she wouldn't; the chaplain's mind alternated the other way. They promised, however, to bring Blanche with them, if possible, and the issue was that Blanche was courageous too, and saw no reason why she should not for once take a quiet dinner with her grandson and old admirer. No doubt she was influenced considerably by her womanly curiosity to see the interior of Mr. Medlicott's little ménage, of which she had heard so much; but she was also beginning to feel strongly that the Bishop's aversion to Reuben was not to be overcome by yielding to it so tamely as his friends had hitherto done. She never dreamed, however, of dining at Piccadilly that day, without acquainting her husband with her intentions; but when she was dressed, and proceeded to his study or dressingroom (for the one chamber with him generally served both purposes), he was just stepping into the coach, and he drove away while she was running down stairs to speak to him before he

went out.

The ministerial dinner was punctual. Mr. Medlicott's was neellessly and wantonly the reverse. One of his absurd and provoking social tricks (for they deserve no more indulgent name) was to keep his company waiting, and be the last to enter his own drawing-room, feigning to be more overwhelmed

with state affairs than cabinet-ministers. It was half-past nine that day before he offered his arm to Mrs. Wyndham to conduct her to dinner. It was past midnight before she got back to her lodgings. The Bishop was half-way to bed, and there was such a fracas as had never before occurred between them. Blanche, though somewhat vexed with herself, was prepared for the scene, and comported herself spiritedly and dexterously through it. The Bishop, who had put on his night-cap, but had only partially disembarrassed himself of his clothes, cut the oddest possible figure during the altercation. He threw all his controversial energy and virulence into the abuse with which he deluged her. He attacked her in his low harsh tones, as a woman, a wife, and a mother; he called her a rake, reminded her of her marriage vows, and desired to know whether she had made up her mind to neglect for the future all her maternal duties. Mrs. Wyndham never interrupted him, until at length he insinuated that she had probably often gone about gadding to dinners and elsewhere, when his back was turned. This charge she at once denied in a few quiet emphatic words. He did not repeat it. Then she took up the other accusations, one after the other, and disposed of them successively. As to raking, she had never before dined out without him; and she had not been at a ball the whole season, even at Portland Place. With respect to her conjugal duties, she could only say that she had done her best, but she hoped his next wife would discharge them more efficiently. Finally, as to her motherly offices, she affirmed very decidedly that she was the best judge whether they were or were not incompatible with her dining now and then at a friend's house, particularly when that friend was his own grandson. Blanche knew very well the effect this was likely to produce.

"Don't call him grandson of mine," the Bishop growled, as he plucked off his apron; "I have long ago renounced him, and you know it."

"Not with justice, sir," said Mrs. Wyndham, with decision. The Bishop was white with rage, and ran through a catalogue of Reuben's offences.

"He commenced by burning my haggard."

Blanche congratalated her old husband upon the vigour of his memory and the minuteness of his recollections.

"He assailed me in public; he had the spirit to slander a clergyman, and the decency to abuse his grandfather." "He never did abuse you, sir."