Plumped with the rich red stream of life, this last of the squires of old England thumped along among the guests, a very tuning-fork to keep them at their pitch of enthusiasm.  He encountered Mr. Caddis, and it was an encounter.  Mr. Caddis represented his political opinions; but here was this cur of a Caddis whineing his niminy note from his piminy nob, when he was asked for his hearty echo of the praises of this jolly good fellow come to waken the neighbourhood, to be a blessing, a blazing hearth, a fall of manna:—­and thank the Lord for him, you desertdog!  ’He ’s a merchant prince, and he’s a prince of a man, if you’re for titles.  Eh? you “assent to my encomiums.”  You’ll be calling me Mr. Speaker next.  Hang me, Caddis, if those Parliamentary benches of yours aren’t freezing you from your seat up, and have got to your jaw—­my belief!’

Mr. Caddis was left reflecting, that we have, in the dispensations of Providence, when we have a seat, to submit to castigations from butcherly men unaccountably commissioned to solidify the seat.  He could have preached a discourse upon Success, to quiet the discontentment of the unseated.  And our world of seats oddly gained, quaintly occupied, maliciously beset, insensately envied, needs the discourse.  But it was not delivered, else would it have been here written down without mercy, as a medical prescript, one of the grand specifics.  He met Victor, and, between his dread of him and the counsels of a position subject to stripes, he was a genial thaw.  Victor beamed; for Mr. Caddis had previously stood eminent as an iceberg of the Lakelands’ party.  Mr. Inchling and Mr. Caddis were introduced.  The former in Commerce, the latter in Politics, their sustaining boast was, the being our stable Englishmen; and at once, with cousinly minds, they fell to chatting upon the nothings agreeably and seriously.  Colney Durance forsook a set of ladies for fatter prey, and listened to them.  What he said, Victor did not hear.  The effect was always to be seen, with Inchling under Colney.  Fenellan did better service, really good service.

Nataly played the heroine she was at heart.  Why think of her as having to act a character!  Twice had Carling that afternoon, indirectly and directly, stated Mrs. Burman to be near the end we crape a natural, a defensible, satisfaction to hear of:—­not wishing it—­poor woman!—­but pardonably, before man and all the angels, wishing, praying for the beloved one to enter into her earthly peace by the agency of the other’s exit into her heavenly.

Fenellan and Colney came together, and said a word apiece of their friend.

’In his element!  The dear old boy has the look of a goldfish, king of his globe.’

’The dear old boy has to me the look of a pot on the fire, with a loose lid.’