408 THE CHATEAU. 



shall mention incidentally. As certain of the persons present had come 

 some leagues to the repast, in open carriages, the first attempt of Kill- 

 joy was to throw a gloom across the party, by predicting a tremendous 

 storm ; he sat apart from all the company, his eye directed wistfully 

 towards some gathering clouds ; emitting now and then a languid sigh, 

 and doing all in speech and manner that could possibly affect the 

 spirits of the guests. John Smith, who held him in ineffable contempt, 

 retorted his forebodings with a most emphatic " Fudge \" The major, 

 who affected infinite good breeding, assented with a ghastly smile to 

 every observation, which came upon the party like a minute gun ; he 

 had neither time nor thought for conversation, being hopelessly em- 

 ployed in the conciliation of a mind and heart that had been basely 

 bartered by avaricious parents for his wealth, and ultimately sacrificed 

 to his disgusting importunities. The major was a stingy, little, ugly 

 sensualist ; his heart absorbed by money and the hope of Mrs. Dry-rot's 

 love ; he was perpetually casting (what he meant for) loving looks at 

 her perfections, which w r ere answered by an eye of meek but cold 

 aversion, in which the duty and decorum of a wretched lovely girl, 

 were struggling with the insurmountable and strenuous feelings of con- 

 firmed disgust. She seemed ashamed of the hypocrisy that entered in 

 her form of speech, as occasions rose of calling such a living skeleton 

 " my dear ;" and notwithstanding this, the pertinacious dotard lavished 

 still his chilling assiduities on the unwilling girl, and looked all things 

 unspeakable as he turned his bilious eyes upon his purchase, and clothed 

 his parchment coloured features with a frightful leer. Thompson 

 never spoke, by any chance, unless addressed ; and then his manner 

 and response were those of an awakened man ; he shook his very frame, 

 assumed a new position on his chair, and rubbed his hands ; and if he 

 could escape with so much brevity, his answer was a pat enunciation of 

 " Ha ! ha !" Not so, the partner of his bed the endless Mrs. Thomp- 

 son, as they curiously called her ; the fond encomaist and idolater of 

 her obnoxious offspring, Theodosius. There was quite sufficient of the 

 dull ingredient here to give a sad complexion to the party. Besides 

 there mostly is a something triste among the English before dinner ; 

 their discourse is Jade ; their gaiety, if any forced ; they need the 

 stimulant an Englishman's a very sombre fellow truly, till he has his 

 bottle. Blunt was disconcerted ; the Oxford scholars had been asked, 

 and neither came nor sent excuses for their absence ; dinner was an 

 hour later than the time appointed, and the guests were either looking 

 vacantly upon each other, or voraciously upon the door. 



But the crown to all these evils, was the unexpected honour on the 

 part of Mr. Thompson and his lady, of a visit from their uninvited son ; 

 whom they had taken the liberty to bring with them. He was a boy 

 between eleven and twelve, who having passed with eminent stupidity 

 through all the superficial trash of an inferior English school, had come 

 abroad to finish, what they called his education, by a dozen lessons from 

 a foreign dancing master. He was naturally selfish, domineering, rude, 

 and petulant, and had become, of course, beneath the government of an 

 iudulgent foolish mother, that most obnoxious of all animals quad- 

 rup?d or biped a perfect specimen of an ill-mannered child. The 

 urchin's face and figure were indicant of his abominable disposition. 

 His hair, which all the plastering and combing of the mother, in vain 

 attempted to distort from its resemblance to the bristles of a hearth- 



