His lordship’s and Mr. Puffington’s letters diffused joy into a house that seemed likely to be distracted with trouble.

So then endeth our thirtieth chapter, and a very pleasant ending it is, for we leave everyone in perfect good humour and spirits, Sponge pleased at having got a fresh billet, Jawleyford delighted at the coming of the lord, and each fair lady practising in private how to sign her Christian name in conjunction with ‘Scamperdale.’

CHAPTER XXXI

MR. PUFFINGTON; OR THE YOUNG MAN ABOUT TOWN

Mr. Puffington took the Mangeysterne, now the Hanby hounds, because he thought they would give him consequence.  Not that he was particularly deficient in that article; but being a new man in the county, he thought that taking them would make him popular, and give him standing.  He had no natural inclination for hunting, but seeing friends who had no taste for the turf take upon themselves the responsibility of stewardships, he saw no reason why he should not make a similar sacrifice at the shrine of Diana.  Indeed, Puff was not bred for a sportsman.  His father, a most estimable man, and one with whom we have spent many a convivial evening, was a great starch-maker at Stepney; and his mother was the daughter of an eminent Worcestershire stone-china maker.  Save such ludicrous hunts as they might have seen on their brown jugs, we do not believe either of them had any acquaintance whatever with the chase.  Old Puffington was, however, what a wise heir esteems a great deal more—­an excellent man of business, and amassed mountains of money.  To see his establishment at Stepney, one would think the whole world was going to be starched.  Enormous dock-tailed dray-horses emerged with ponderous waggons heaped up to the very skies, while others would come rumbling in, laden with wheat, potatoes, and other starch-making ingredients.  Puffington’s blue roans were well known about town, and were considered the handsomest horses of the day; quite equal to Barclay and Perkin’s piebalds.

Old Puffington was not like a sportsman.  He was a little, soft, rosy, roundabout man, with stiff resolute legs that did not look as if they could be bent to a saddle.  He was great, however, in a gig, and slouched like a sack.

Mrs. Puffington, nee Smith, was a tall handsome woman, who thought a good deal of herself.  When she and her spouse married, they lived close to the manufactory, in a sweet little villa replete with every elegance and convenience—­a pond, which they called a lake—­laburnums without end; a yew, clipped into a dock-tailed waggon-horse; standing for three horses and gigs, with an acre and half of land for a cow.