; and on this, without a cloth, our repast was spread by Cato,
while the other servants retired, panting and grinning like over-fat
hounds after a pack-run.

And, by Heaven! they lacked nothing for solid silver, my cousins the
Varicks, nor yet for fine glass, which I observed without appearance of
vulgar curiosity while Cato carved a cold joint of butcher's roast and
cracked the bottles of wine--a claret that perfumed the room like a
garden in September.

"Cousin Dorothy, I have the honor to raise my glass to you," I said.

"I drink your health, Cousin George," she said, gravely--"Benny, let
that wine alone! Is there no small-beer there, that you go coughing and
staining your bib over wine forbidden? Take his glass away, Ruyven! Take
it quick, I say!"

Benny, deprived of his claret, collapsed moodily into a heap, and sat
swinging his legs and clipping the table, at every kick of his shoon,
until my wine danced in my glass and soiled the table.

"Stop that, you!" cried Cecile.

Benny subsided, scowling.

Though Dorothy was at some pains to assure me that they had dined but an
hour before, that did not appear to blunt their appetites. And the
manner in which they drank astonished me, a glass of wine being
considered sufficient for young ladies at home, and a half-glass for
lads like Harry and Sam. Yet when I emptied my glass Dorothy emptied
hers, and the servants refilled hers when they refilled mine, till I
grew anxious and watched to see that her face flushed not, but had my
anxiety for my pains, as she changed not a pulse-beat for all the red
wine she swallowed.

And Lord! how busy were her little white teeth, while her pretty eyes
roved about, watchful that order be kept at this gypsy repast. Cecile
and Harry fell to struggling for a glass, which snapped and flew to
flakes under their clutching fingers, drenching them with claret.

"Silence!" cried Dorothy, rising, eyes ablaze. "Do you wish our cousin
Ormond to take us for manner-less savages?"

"Why not?" retorted Harry. "We are!"

"Oh, Lud!" drawled Cecile, languidly fanning her flushed face, "I would
I had drunk small-beer--Harry, if you kick me again I'll pinch!"

"It's a shame," observed Ruyven, "that gentlemen of our age may not take
a glass of wine together in comfort."

"Your age!" laughed Dorothy. "Cousin Ormond is twenty-three, silly, and
I'm eighteen--or close to it."

"And I'm seventeen," retorted Ruyven.

"Yet I throw you at wrestling,"