The dinner was announced.  Mr. Morton was honoured with the hand of Lady Augustus.  The Senator handed the old lady into the dining-room and Mr. Mainwaring the younger lady,—­so that Arabella was sitting next to her lover.  It had all been planned by Morton and acceded to by his grandmother.  Mr. Gotobed throughout the dinner had the best of the conversation, though Lady Augustus had power enough to snub him on more than one occasion.  “Suppose we were to allow at once,” she said, “that everything is better in the United States than anywhere else, shouldn’t we get along easier?”

“I don’t know that getting along easy is what we have particularly got in view,” said Mr. Gotobed, who was certainly in quest of information.

“But it is what I have in view, Mr. Gotobed;—­so if you please we’ll take the pre-eminence of your country for granted.”  Then she turned to Mr. Mainwaring on the other side.  Upon this the Senator addressed himself for a while to the table at large and had soon forgotten altogether the expression of the lady’s wishes.

“I believe you have a good many churches about here,” said Lady Augustus trying to make conversation to her neighbour.

“One in every parish, I fancy,” said Mr. Mainwaring, who preferred all subjects to clerical subjects.  “I suppose London is quite empty now.”

“We came direct from the Duke’s,” said Lady Augustus, “and did not even sleep in town;—­but it is empty.”  The Duke was the brother of Lord Augustus, and a compromise had been made with Lady Augustus, by which she and her daughter should be allowed a fortnight every year at the Duke’s place in the country, and a certain amount of entertainment in town.

“I remember the Duke at Christchurch,” said the parson.  “He and I were of the same par.  He was Lord Mistletoe then.  Dear me, that was a long time ago.  I wonder whether he remembers being upset out of a trap with me one day after dinner.  I suppose we had dined in earnest.  He has gone his way, and I have gone mine, and I’ve never seen him since.  Pray remember me to him.”  Lady Augustus said she would, and did entertain some little increased respect for the clergyman who could boast that he had been tipsy in company with her worthy brother-in-law.

Poor Mr. Cooper did not get on very well with Mrs. Morton.  All his remembrances of the old squire were eulogistic and affectionate.  Hers were just the reverse.  He had a good word to say for Reginald Morton,—­to which she would not even listen.  She was willing enough to ask questions about the Mallingham tenants;—­but Mr. Cooper would revert back to the old days, and so conversation was at an end.