And now for Mr. Tappitt," said he, as he slowly took his legs from
off the railing.

CHAPTER V.

MR. COMFORT GIVES HIS ADVICE.

Mrs. Tappitt was very full of her party. It had grown in her mind
as those things do grow, till it had come to assume almost the
dimensions of a ball. When Mrs. Tappitt first consulted her husband
and obtained his permission for the gathering, it was simply intended
that a few of her daughters' friends should be brought together to
make the visit cheerful for Miss Rowan; but the mistress of the house
had become ambitious; two fiddles, with a German horn, were to be
introduced because the piano would be troublesome; the drawing-room
carpet was to be taken up, and there was to be a supper in the
dining-room. The thing in its altered shape loomed large by degrees
upon Mr. Tappitt, and he found himself unable to stop its growth.
The word ball would have been fatal; but Mrs. Tappitt was too good a
general, and the girls were too judicious as lieutenants, to commit
themselves by the presumption of any such term. It was still Mrs.
Tappitt's evening tea-party, but it was understood in Baslehurst that
Mrs. Tappitt's evening tea-party was to be something considerable.

A great success had attended this lady at the onset of her scheme.
Mrs. Butler Cornbury had called at the brewery, and had promised that
she would come, and that she would bring some of the Cornbury family.
Now Mr. Butler Cornbury was the eldest son of the most puissant
squire within five miles of Baslehurst, and was indeed almost as
good as Squire himself, his father being a very old man. Mrs. Butler
Cornbury had, it is true, not been esteemed as holding any very high
rank while shining as a beauty under the name of Patty Comfort;
but she had taken kindly to her new honours, and was now reckoned
as a considerable magnate in that part of the county. She did not
customarily join in the festivities of the town, and held herself
aloof from people even of higher standing than the Tappitts. But
she was an ambitious woman, and had inspired her lord with the
desire of representing Baslehurst in Parliament. There would be an
election at Baslehurst in the coming autumn, and Mrs. Cornbury was
already preparing for the fight. Hence had arisen her visit at the
brewery, and hence also her ready acquiescence in Mrs. Tappitt's
half-pronounced request.

The party was to be celebrated on a Tuesday,--Tuesday week after
that Sunday which was p