n an egregious scale--but Mr. Plomacy
declared that neither would be sufficient. To remedy this, an
auxiliary banquet was prepared in the dining-room, and a subsidiary
board was to be spread _sub dio_ for the accommodation of the lower
class of yokels on the Ullathorne property.

No one who has not had a hand in the preparation of such an affair
can understand the manifold difficulties which Miss Thorne encountered
in her project. Had she not been made throughout of the very finest
whalebone, riveted with the best Yorkshire steel, she must have sunk
under them. Had not Mr. Plomacy felt how much was justly expected from
a man who at one time carried the destinies of Europe in his boot,
he would have given way, and his mistress, so deserted, must have
perished among her poles and canvas.

In the first place there was a dreadful line to be drawn. Who were
to dispose themselves within the ha-ha, and who without? To this
the unthinking will give an off-hand answer, as they will to every
ponderous question. Oh, the bishop and such-like within the ha-ha,
and Farmer Greenacre and such-like without. True, my unthinking
friend, but who shall define these such-likes? It is in such
definitions that the whole difficulty of society consists. To seat
the bishop on an arm-chair on the lawn and place Farmer Greenacre at
the end of a long table in the paddock is easy enough, but where will
you put Mrs. Lookaloft, whose husband, though a tenant on the estate,
hunts in a red coat, whose daughters go to a fashionable seminary
in Barchester, who calls her farm-house Rosebank, and who has a
pianoforte in her drawing-room? The Misses Lookaloft, as they call
themselves, won't sit contented among the bumpkins. Mrs. Lookaloft
won't squeeze her fine clothes on a bench and talk familiarly about
cream and ducklings to good Mrs. Greenacre. And yet Mrs. Lookaloft
is no fit companion and never has been the associate of the Thornes
and the Grantlys. And if Mrs. Lookaloft be admitted within the
sanctum of fashionable life, if she be allowed with her three
daughters to leap the ha-ha, why not the wives and daughters of other
families also? Mrs. Greenacre is at present well contented with the
paddock, but she might cease to be so if she saw Mrs. Lookaloft on
the lawn. And thus poor Miss Thorne had a hard time of it.

And how was she to divide her guests between the marquee and the
parlour? She had a countess coming, an Honourable John and an
Honourable