A Turkey carpet was placed in the middle of the floor; and on the middle of the carpet stood the card table, at which two footmen, hastily summoned from the revels at Sandy More’s, were placing chairs and cards; seemingly eager to display themselves, as if to prove that they were always at their posts.

Cards were a matter of course with Sir Sampson and his lady; but as whist was the only game they ever played, a difficulty arose as to the means of providing amusement for the younger part of the company.

“I have plenty of books for you, my loves,” said Lady Maclaughlan; and, taking one of the candles, she made a journey to the other end of the room, and entered a small turret, from which her voice was heard issuing most audibly, “All the books that should ever have been published are here.  Read these, and you need read no more:  all the world’s in these books—­humph!  Here’s the Bible, great and small, with apocrypha and concordance!  Here’s Floyer’s Medicina Gerocomica, or the Galenic Art of Preserving Old Men’s Health;—­Love’s Art of Surveying and Measuring Land;—­Transactions of the Highland Society;—­Glass’s Cookery;—­Flavel’s Fountain of Life Opened;—­Fencing Familiarised;—­Observations on the Use of Bath Waters;—­Cure for Soul Sores;—­De Blondt’s Military Memoirs;—­MacGhie’s Book-keeping;—­Mead on Pestilence;—­Astenthology, or the Art of Preserving Feeble Life!”

As she enumerated the contents of her library, she paused at the end of each title, in hopes of hearing the book called for; but she was allowed to proceed without interruption to the end of her catalogue.

“Why, what would you have, children?” cried she in one of her sternest accents.  “I don’t know!  Do you know yourselves?  Here are two novels, the only ones worth any Christian’s reading.”

Henry gladly accepted the first volumes of Gil Bias and Clarissa Harlowe; and, giving the latter to Lady Juliana, began the other himself.  Miss Becky was settled with her hands across; and, the whist party being arranged, a solemn silence ensued.

Lady Juliana turned over a few pages of her own book, then begged Henry would exchange with her; but both were in so different a style from the French and German school she had been accustomed to, that they were soon relinquished in disappointment and disgust.

On the table, which had been placed by the fire for her accommodation, lay an English newspaper; and to that she had recourse, as a last effort at amusement.  But, alas! even the dulness of Clarissa Harlowe was delight compared to the anguish with which this fatal paper was fraught, in the shape of the following paragraph, which presented itself to the unfortunate fair one’s eye:—­