as their previous
history appertains to the development of this present story.

But the autumn, and the end of the Parliamentary Session and the London
season, brought one or two county families down to their houses, and
filled tolerably the neighbouring little watering-place of Baymouth,
and opened our friend Mr. Bingley's Theatre Royal at Chatteris, and
collected the usual company at the Assizes and Race-balls there. Up to
this time, the old county families had been rather shy of our friends of
Clavering Park. The Fogeys of Drummington; the Squares of Tozely Park;
the Welbores of The Barrow, etc.: all sorts of stories were current
among these folks regarding the family at Clavering;--indeed, nobody
ought to say that people in the country have no imagination who heard
them talk about new neighbours. About Sir Francis and his Lady, and her
birth and parentage, about Miss Amory, about Captain Strong, there had
been endless histories which need not be recapitulated; and the family
of the Park had been three months in the county before the great people
around began to call.

But at the end of the season, the Earl of Trehawk, Lord Lieutenant
of the County, coming to Eyrie Castle, and the Countess Dowager of
Rockminster, whose son was also a magnate of the land, to occupy
a mansion on the Marine Parade at Baymouth--these great folks came
publicly, immediately, and in state, to call upon the family of
Clavering Park; and the carriages of the county families speedily
followed in the track which had been left in the avenue by their lordly
wheels.

It was then that Mirobolant began to have an opportunity of exercising
that skill which he possessed, and of forgetting, in the occupations of
his art, the pangs of love. It was then that the large footmen were too
much employed at Clavering Park to be able to bring messages, or dally
over the cup of small beer with the poor little maids at Fairoaks. It
was then that Blanche found other dear friends than Laura, and other
places to walk in besides the river-side, where Pen was fishing. He came
day after day, and whipped the stream, but the "fish, fish!" wouldn't do
their duty, nor the Peri appear. And here, though in strict confidence,
and with a request that the matter go no further, we may as well allude
to a delicate business, of which previous hint has been given. Mention
has been made, in a former page, of a certain hollow tree, at which
Pen used to take his station when engag