nd antique furniture, and smiling portraits, and recumbent
Caesar, did it shine, merry and laughing, taking its pastime ere it
went away to other lands, like a great, cheerful simple soul, smiling
at nature and all human life.

And the talk of all was like the sunshine. The old Squire was king of
the breakfast table, and broke many a jesting shaft at one and all,
not even sparing the stately Miss Lavinia, and the rugged bear who
scowled across the table.

"Good bread for once," said the Squire, slashing into the smoking
loaf; astonishing how dull those negroes are--not to be able to learn
such a simple thing as baking."

"Simple!" muttered the lawyer, "it is not simple! If you recollected
something of chemistry, you would acknowledge that baking bread was no
slight achievement."

"Come, growl again," said his host, laughing; "come, now, indulge your
habit, and say the bread is sour."

"It is!"

"What!--sour!"

"Yes."

The Squire stands aghast--or rather sits, laboring under that
sentiment.

"It is the best bread we have had for six months," he says, at length,
"and as sweet as a nut."

"You have no taste," says Mr. Rushton.

"No taste?"

"None: and the fact that it is the best you have had for six months is
not material testimony. You may have had _lead_ every morning--humph!"

And Mr. Rushton continues his breakfast.

The Squire laughs.

"There you are--in a bad humor," he says.

"I am not."

"Come! say that the broil is bad!"

"It is burnt to a cinder."

"Burnt? Why it's underdone!"

"Well, sir--every man to his taste--you may have yours; leave me
mine."

"Oh, certainly; I see you are determined to like nothing. You'll say
next that Lavinia's butter is not sweet."

The lawyer growls.

"I have no desire to offend Miss Lavinia," he says, solemnly; "but
I'll take my oath that there's garlic in it--yes, sir, garlic!"

The Squire bursts into a roar of laughter.

"Good!" he cries--"you are in a cheerful and contented mood. You drop
in just when Lavinia has perfected her butter, and made it as fresh as
a nosegay; and when the cook has sent up bread as sweet as a kernel,
to say nothing of the broil, done to a turn--you come when this highly
desirable state of things has been arrived at, and presume to say that
this is done, that is burnt, the other is tainted with garlic! Admire
your own judgment!"

And the Squire laughs jovially at his discomfited and growling
opponent.

"True, Lavini