Equal gayety reigned within doors, where a large party of friends were entertained.  Every one laughed at his own pleasantry, without attending to that of his neighbours.  Loads of bride-cake were distributed.  The young ladies were all busy in passing morsels of it through the wedding-ring to dream on, and I myself assisted a few little boarding-school girls in putting up a quantity for their companions, which I have no doubt will set all the little heads in the school gadding, for a week at least.

After dinner, all the company, great and small, gentle and simple, abandoned themselves to the dance:  not the modern quadrille, with its graceful gravity, but the merry, social, old country-dance; the true dance, as the Squire says, for a wedding occasion, as it sets all the world jigging in couples, hand in hand, and makes every eye and every heart dance merrily to the music.  According to frank old usage, the gentlefolks of the Hall mingled for a tune in the dance of the peasantry, who had a great tent erected for a ball-room; and I think I never saw Master Simon more in his element, than when figuring about among his rustic admirers, as master of the ceremonies; and, with a mingled air of protection and gallantry, leading out the quondam Queen of May, all blushing at the signal honour conferred upon her.

In the evening the whole village was illuminated, excepting the house of the radical, who has not shown his face during the rejoicings.  There was a display of fire-works at the school-house, got up by the prodigal son, which had well-nigh set fire to the building.  The Squire is so much pleased with the extraordinary services of this last mentioned worthy, that he talks of enrolling him in his list of valuable retainers, and promoting him to some important post on the estate; per-adventure to be falconer, if the hawks can ever be brought into proper training.

There is a well-known old proverb, that says “one wedding makes many,”—­or something to the same purpose; and I should not be surprised if it holds good in the present instance.  I have seen several flirtations among the young people, that have been brought together on this occasion; and a great deal of strolling about in pairs, among the retired walks and blossoming shrubberies of the old garden:  and if groves were really given to whispering, as poets would fain make us believe, Heaven knows what love tales the grave-looking old trees about this venerable country-seat might blab to the world.

The general, too, has waxed very zealous in his devotions within the last few days, as the time of her ladyship’s departure approaches.  I observed him casting many a tender look at her during the wedding dinner, while the courses were changing; though he was always liable to be interrupted in his adoration by the appearance of any new delicacy.  The general, in fact, has arrived at that time of life when the heart and the stomach maintain a kind of balance of power, and when