a frost-cake, all royal,
glittering, and _Epiphanous_. The rest came, some in green, some in
white--but old _Lent and his family_ were not yet out of mourning.
Rainy _Days_ came in, dripping; and sun-shiny _Days_ helped them
to change their stockings. _Wedding Day_ was there in his marriage
finery, a little the worse for wear. _Pay Day_ came late, as he always
does; and _Doomsday_ sent word--he might be expected.

_April Fool_ (as my young lord's jester) took upon himself to marshal
the guests, and wild work he made with it. It would have posed old
Erra Pater to have found out any given _Day_ in the year, to erect a
scheme upon--good _Days_, bad _Days_, were so shuffled together, to
the confounding of all sober horoscopy.

He had stuck the _Twenty First of June_ next to the _Twenty Second of
December_, and the former looked like a Maypole siding a marrow-bone.
_Ash Wednesday_ got wedged in (as was concerted) betwixt _Christmas_
and _Lord Mayor's Days_. Lord! how he laid about him! Nothing but
barons of beef and turkeys would go down with him--to the great
greasing and detriment of his new sackcloth bib and tucker. And still
_Christmas Day_ was at his elbow, plying him the wassail-bowl, till
he roared, and hiccup'd, and protested there was no faith in dried
ling, but commended it to the devil for a sour, windy, acrimonious,
censorious, hy-po-crit-crit-cri-tical mess, and no dish for a
gentleman. Then he dipt his fist into the middle of the great custard
that stood before his _left-hand neighbour_, and daubed his hungry
beard all over with it, till you would have taken him for the _Last
Day in December_, it so hung in icicles.

At another part of the table, _Shrove Tuesday_ was helping the _Second
of September_ to some cock broth,--which courtesy the latter returned
with the delicate thigh of a hen pheasant--so there was no love lost
for that matter. The _Last of Lent_ was spunging upon _Shrovetide's_
pancakes; which _April Fool_ perceiving, told him he did well, for
pancakes were proper to a _good fry-day_.

In another part, a hubbub arose about the _Thirtieth of January_, who,
it seems, being a sour puritanic character, that thought nobody's meat
good or sanctified enough for him, had smuggled into the room a calf's
head, which he had had cooked at home for that purpose, thinking
to feast thereon incontinently; but as it lay in the dish, _March
manyweathers_, who is a very fine lady, and subject to the megrims,
scr