f
"Charles Aubrey, Esq., M. P., and his family, for the Christmas recess,"
the efforts of Mrs. and Miss Aubrey were most powerfully seconded by a
constant succession of visitors--by

"Troops of friends,"

as the lodge-keeper could have testified; for he and his buxom wife were
continually opening and shutting the great gates. On the Monday after
Christmas-day, (_i. e._ the day but one following,) came cantering up to
the Hall Lord De la Zouch and Mr. Delamere, of course staying to
luncheon and bearing a most pressing invitation from Lady De la Zouch,
zealously backed by themselves, for the Aubreys to join a large party at
Fotheringham Castle on New-Year's Eve. This was accepted--a day and a
night were thus gone at a swoop. The same thing happened with the
Oldfields, their nearest neighbors; with Sir Percival Pickering at
Luddington Court, where was a superb new picture-gallery to be
critically inspected by Mr. Aubrey--the Earl of Oldacre, a college
friend of Mr. Aubrey's--the venerable Lady Stratton, the earliest friend
and schoolfellow of old Mrs. Aubrey, and so forth. Then Kate had several
visits to pay on her own account; and being fond of horseback, but not
of riding about the country with only a groom in attendance, her brother
_must_ accompany her on these occasions. The first week of their stay in
the country was devoted to visiting their neighbors and friends in the
way I have stated; the next was to be spent in receiving them at Yatton,
during which time the old Hall was to ring with merry hospitality.

Then there was a little world of other matters to occupy Mr. Aubrey's
attention, and which naturally crowded upon him, living so little as he
had latterly lived at Yatton. He often had a kind of levee of his
humbler neighbors, tenants, and constituents; and on these occasions his
real goodness of nature, his simplicity, his patience, his forbearance,
his sweetness of temper, his benevolence, shone conspicuous. With all
these more endearing qualities, there was yet a placid dignity about him
which would have chilled undue familiarity, and repelled
presumption--had they ventured to manifest themselves. He had here no
motive or occasion for ostentation, or, as it is called,
popularity-hunting. In a sense it might be said of him, that he was
"monarch of all he surveyed." It is true, he was member for the
borough--an honor, however, for which he was indebted to the natural
influence of his commanding position-