’How sparing you English are of your crests and arms!  I fully expected to see the Jocelyns’ over my bed; but no—­four posts totally without ornament!  Sleep, indeed, must be the result of dire fatigue in such a bed.  The Jocelyn crest is a hawk in jesses.  The Elburne arms are, Or, three falcons on a field, vert.  How heraldry reminds me of poor Papa! the evenings we used to spend with him, when he stayed at home, studying it so diligently under his directions!  We never shall again!  Sir Franks Jocelyn is the third son of Lord Elburne, made a Baronet for his patriotic support of the Ministry in a time of great trouble.  The people are sometimes grateful, my dear.  Lord Elburne is the fourteenth of his line—­originally simple country squires.  They talk of the Roses, but we need not go so very far back as that.  I do not quite understand why a Lord’s son should condescend to a Baronetcy.  Precedence of some sort for his lady, I suppose.  I have yet to learn whether she ranks by his birth, or his present title.  If so, a young Baronetcy cannot possibly be a gain.  One thing is certain.  She cares very little about it.  She is most eccentric.  But remember what I have told you.  It will be serviceable when you are speaking of the family.

’The dinner-hour, six.  It would no doubt be full seven in Town.  I am convinced you are half-an-hour too early.  I had the post of honour to the right of Sir Franks.  Evan to the right of Lady Jocelyn.  Most fortunately he was in the best of spirits—­quite brilliant.  I saw the eyes of that sweet Rose glisten.  On the other side of me sat my pet diplomatist, and I gave him one or two political secrets which astonished him.  Of course, my dear, I was wheedled out of them.  His contempt for our weak intellects is ineffable.  But a woman must now and then ingratiate herself at the expense of her sex.  This is perfectly legitimate.  Tory policy at the table.  The Opposition, as Andrew says, not represented.  So to show that we were human beings, we differed among ourselves, and it soon became clear to me that Lady Jocelyn is the rankest of Radicals.  My secret suspicion is, that she is a person of no birth whatever, wherever her money came from.  A fine woman—­yes; still to be admired, I suppose, by some kind of men; but totally wanting in the essentially feminine attractions.

’There was no party, so to say.  I will describe the people present, beginning with the insignifacants.

’First, Mr. Parsley, the curate of Beckley.  He eats everything at table, and agrees with everything.  A most excellent orthodox young clergyman.  Except that he was nearly choked by a fish-bone, and could not quite conceal his distress—­and really Rose should have repressed her desire to laugh till the time for our retirement—­he made no sensation.  I saw her eyes watering, and she is not clever in turning it off.  In that nobody ever equalled dear Papa.  I attribute the attack almost entirely to the tightness of the white neck-cloths the young clergymen of the Established Church wear.  But, my dear, I have lived too long away from them to wish for an instant the slightest change in anything they think, say, or do.  The mere sight of this young man was most refreshing to my spirit.  He may be the shepherd of a flock, this poor Mr. Parsley, but he is a sheep to one young person.