The Colonel said he did n’t know how that might be.  She was a better judge than he was.  It was bother enough, anyhow, and he was glad that it was over.  After this, the worthy pair commenced preparations for rejoining the waking world, and in due time proceeded downstairs.

Everybody was late that morning, and nothing had got put to rights.  The house looked as if a small army had been quartered in it over night.  The tables were of course in huge disorder, after the protracted assault they had undergone.  There had been a great battle evidently, and it had gone against the provisions.  Some points had been stormed, and all their defences annihilated, but here and there were centres of resistance which had held out against all attacks,—­large rounds of beef, and solid loaves of cake, against which the inexperienced had wasted their energies in the enthusiasm of youth or uninformed maturity, while the longer-headed guests were making discoveries of “shell-oysters” and “patridges” and similar delicacies.

The breakfast was naturally of a somewhat fragmentary character.  A chicken that had lost his legs in the service of the preceding campaign was once more put on duty.  A great ham stuck with cloves, as Saint Sebastian was with arrows, was again offered for martyrdom.  It would have been a pleasant sight for a medical man of a speculative turn to have seen the prospect before the Colonel’s family of the next week’s breakfasts, dinners, and suppers.  The trail that one of these great rural parties leaves after it is one of its most formidable considerations.  Every door-handle in the house is suggestive of sweetmeats for the next week, at least.  The most unnatural articles of diet displace the frugal but nutritious food of unconvulsed periods of existence.  If there is a walking infant about the house, it will certainly have a more or less fatal fit from overmuch of some indigestible delicacy.  Before the week is out, everybody will be tired to death of sugary forms of nourishment and long to see the last of the remnants of the festival.

The family had not yet arrived at this condition.  On the contrary, the first inspection of the tables suggested the prospect of days of unstinted luxury; and the younger portion of the household, especially, were in a state of great excitement as the account of stock was taken with reference to future internal investments.  Some curious facts came to light during these researches.

“Where’s all the oranges gone to?” said Mrs. Sprowle.  “I expected there’d be ever so many of ’em left.  I did n’t see many of the folks eatin’ oranges.  Where’s the skins of ’em?  There ought to be six dozen orange-skins round on the plates, and there a’n’t one dozen.  And all the small cakes, too, and all the sugar things that was stuck on the big cakes.  Has anybody counted the spoons?  Some of ’em got swallered, perhaps.  I hope they was plated ones, if they did!”