nts of his life
were those when he was surrounded by his tenantry; he doated on the manly
character of the English farmer. Then he would advert to the great
antiquity of the Jawleyford family, many generations of whom looked down
upon them from the walls of the old hall; some on their war-steeds, some
armed _cap-a-pie_, some in court-dresses, some in Spanish ones, one in a
white dress with gold brocade breeches and a hat with an enormous plume,
old Jawleyford (father of the present one) in the Windsor uniform, and our
friend himself, the very prototype of what then stood before them. Indeed,
he had been painted in the act of addressing his hereditary chawbacons in
the hall in which the picture was suspended. There he stood, with his
bright auburn hair (now rather badger-pied, perhaps, but still very
passable by candlelight)--his bright auburn hair, we say, swept boldly off
his lofty forehead, his hazy grey eyes flashing with the excitement of
drink and animation, his left hand reposing on the hip of his well-fitting
black pantaloons, while the right one, radiant with rings, and trimmed with
upturned wristband, sawed the air, as he rounded off the periods of the
well-accustomed saws.

Jawleyford, like a good many people, was very hospitable when in full
fig--two soups, two fishes, and the necessary concomitants; but he would
see any one far enough before he would give him a dinner merely because he
wanted one. That sort of ostentatious banqueting has about brought country
society in general to a deadlock. People tire of the constant revision of
plate, linen, and china.

Mrs. Jawleyford, on the other hand, was a very rough-and-ready sort of
woman, never put out of her way; and though she constantly preached the old
doctrine that girls 'are much better single than married,' she was always
on the look-out for opportunities of contradicting her assertions.

She was an Irish lady, with a pedigree almost as long as Jawleyford's, but
more compressible pride, and if she couldn't get a duke, she would take a
marquis or an earl, or even put up with a rich commoner.

The perusal, therefore, of Sponge's letter, operated differently upon her
to what it did upon her husband, and though she would have liked a little
more time, perhaps, she did not care to take him as they were. Jawleyford,
however, resisted violently. It would be most particularly inconvenient to
him to receive company at that time. If Mr. Sponge had gone through the