really gratifying. I did not think that
there remained so much of the old respect and affection between peasant
and proprietor, landlord and tenant."

In the present day, if a season of financial pressure sets in, people
shut up their country houses, let their shooting, cut themselves off
with a sigh of relief from all the unexciting duties and simple
pleasures of the Home, and take refuge from boredom in the delights of
London. In London life has no duties. Little is expected of one, and
nothing required.

But in old days, when people wished to economize, it was London that
they deserted. They sold the "Family Mansion" in Portland Place or Eaton
Square; and, if they revisited the glimpses of the social moon, they
took a furnished house for six weeks in the summer; the rest of the year
they spent in the country. This plan was a manifold saving. There was no
rent to pay, and only very small rates, for everyone knows that country
houses are shamefully under-assessed. Carriages did not require
re-painting every season, and no new clothes were wanted. As the ladies
in _Cranford_ said--"What can it matter what we wear here, where
everyone knows who we are?" The products of the Park, the Home Farm, the
hothouses, and the kitchen-garden kept the family supplied with food. A
brother-magnate staying at Beaudesert with the famous Lord Anglesey
waxed enthusiastic over the mutton, and, venturing on the privilege of
an old friendship, asked how much it cost him. "Cost me?" screamed the
hero. "Good Gad, it costs me nothing! I don't buy it. It's my own," and
he was beyond measure astonished when his statistical guest proved that
"his own" cost him about a guinea per pound. In another great house,
conducted on strictly economical lines, it was said that the very
numerous family were reared exclusively on rabbits and garden-stuff, and
that their enfeebled constitutions and dismal appearance in later life
were due to this ascetic regimen.

People were always hospitable in the country; but rural entertaining was
not a very costly business. The "three square meals and a snack," which
represent the minimum requirements of the present day, are a huge
development of the system which prevailed in my youth. Breakfast had
already grown from the tea and coffee, and rolls and eggs, which
Macaulay tells us were deemed sufficient at Holland House, to an affair
of covered dishes. Luncheon-parties were sometimes given--terrible
ceremonies which la