ants.
A very handsome young Briton he looked to-day, in high spirits and a
bright-blue frock-coat, the highest mode--his arm no longer in a sling.
So open-looking and candid, too; but candid people have their secrets,
and secrets leave no lines in young faces.

"Upon my word," he said, as they entered the cool cloisters, "I think
the cottagers have the best of it: these cloisters make a delightful
dining-room on a hot day. That was capital advice of yours, Irwine,
about the dinners--to let them be as orderly and comfortable as
possible, and only for the tenants: especially as I had only a limited
sum after all; for though my grandfather talked of a carte blanche, he
couldn't make up his mind to trust me, when it came to the point."

"Never mind, you'll give more pleasure in this quiet way," said Mr.
Irwine. "In this sort of thing people are constantly confounding
liberality with riot and disorder. It sounds very grand to say that so
many sheep and oxen were roasted whole, and everybody ate who liked
to come; but in the end it generally happens that no one has had an
enjoyable meal. If the people get a good dinner and a moderate quantity
of ale in the middle of the day, they'll be able to enjoy the games
as the day cools. You can't hinder some of them from getting too much
towards evening, but drunkenness and darkness go better together than
drunkenness and daylight."

"Well, I hope there won't be much of it. I've kept the Treddleston
people away by having a feast for them in the town; and I've got Casson
and Adam Bede and some other good fellows to look to the giving out of
ale in the booths, and to take care things don't go too far. Come, let
us go up above now and see the dinner-tables for the large tenants."

They went up the stone staircase leading simply to the long gallery
above the cloisters, a gallery where all the dusty worthless old
pictures had been banished for the last three generations--mouldy
portraits of Queen Elizabeth and her ladies, General Monk with his eye
knocked out, Daniel very much in the dark among the lions, and Julius
Caesar on horseback, with a high nose and laurel crown, holding his
Commentaries in his hand.

"What a capital thing it is that they saved this piece of the old
abbey!" said Arthur. "If I'm ever master here, I shall do up the gallery
in first-rate style. We've got no room in the house a third as large
as this. That second table is for the farmers' wives and children: Mrs.