go by. But, as misfortune would have it, though the
table was covered with bottles, his eye could not catch one. Indeed,
his eye first could catch nothing, for the things swam before him,
and the guests all seemed to dance in their chairs.

Up he got, however, and commenced his speech. As he could not follow
his preceptor's advice as touching the bottle, he adopted his own
crude plan of "making a mark on some old covey's head," and therefore
looked dead at the doctor.

"Upon my word, I am very much obliged to you, gentlemen and ladies,
ladies and gentlemen, I should say, for drinking my health, and
doing me so much honour, and all that sort of thing. Upon my word I
am. Especially to Mr Baker. I don't mean you, Harry, you're not Mr
Baker."

"As much as you're Mr Gresham, Master Frank."

"But I am not Mr Gresham; and I don't mean to be for many a long year
if I can help it; not at any rate till we have had another coming of
age here."

"Bravo, Frank; and whose will that be?"

"That will be my son, and a very fine lad he will be; and I hope
he'll make a better speech than his father. Mr Baker said I was every
inch a Gresham. Well, I hope I am." Here the countess began to look
cold and angry. "I hope the day will never come when my father won't
own me for one."

"There's no fear, no fear," said the doctor, who was almost put out
of countenance by the orator's intense gaze. The countess looked
colder and more angry, and muttered something to herself about a
bear-garden.

"Gardez Gresham; eh? Harry! mind that when you're sticking in a gap
and I'm coming after you. Well, I am sure I am very obliged to you
for the honour you have all done me, especially the ladies, who don't
do this sort of thing on ordinary occasions. I wish they did; don't
you, doctor? And talking of the ladies, my aunt and cousins have come
all the way from London to hear me make this speech, which certainly
is not worth the trouble; but, all the same I am very much obliged
to them." And he looked round and made a little bow at the countess.
"And so I am to Mr and Mrs Jackson, and Mr and Mrs and Miss Bateson,
and Mr Baker--I'm not at all obliged to you, Harry--and to Mr Oriel
and Miss Oriel, and to Mr Umbleby, and to Dr Thorne, and to Mary--I
beg her pardon, I mean Miss Thorne." And then he sat down, amid the
loud plaudits of the company, and a string of blessings which came
from the servants behind him.

After this the ladies rose and departed