safer and
more secure basis.

It was on one of the evenings when the learned divine had taken his
place at Mr. Touchwood's social board, or rather at Mrs. Dods's,--for a
cup of excellent tea, the only luxury which Mr. Cargill continued to
partake of with some complacence, was the regale before them,--that a
card was delivered to the Nabob.

"Mr. and Miss Mowbray see company at Shaws-Castle on the twentieth
current, at two o'clock--a _dejeuner_--dresses in character
admitted--A dramatic picture."

"See company? the more fools they," he continued by way of comment. "See
company?--choice phrases are ever commendable--and this piece of
pasteboard is to intimate that one may go and meet all the fools of the
parish, if they have a mind--in my time they asked the honour, or the
pleasure, of a stranger's company. I suppose, by and by, we shall have
in this country the ceremonial of a Bedouin's tent, where every ragged
Hadgi, with his green turban, comes in slap without leave asked, and has
his black paw among the rice, with no other apology than Salam
Alicum.--'Dresses in character--Dramatic picture'--what new tomfoolery
can that be?--but it does not signify.--Doctor! I say Doctor!--but he is
in the seventh heaven--I say, Mother Dods, you who know all the news--Is
this the feast that was put off until Miss Mowbray should be better?"

"Troth is it, Maister Touchwood--they are no in the way of giving twa
entertainments in one season--no very wise to gie ane maybe--but they
ken best."

"I say, Doctor, Doctor!--Bless his five wits, he is charging the
Moslemah with stout King Richard--I say, Doctor, do you know any thing
of these Mowbrays?"

"Nothing extremely particular," answered Mr. Cargill, after a pause; "it
is an ordinary tale of greatness, which blazes in one century, and is
extinguished in the next. I think Camden says, that Thomas Mowbray, who
was Grand-Marshal of England, succeeded to that high office, as well as
to the Dukedom of Norfolk, as grandson of Roger Bigot, in 1301."

"Pshaw, man, you are back into the 14th century--I mean these Mowbrays
of St. Ronan's--now, don't fall asleep again until you have answered my
question--and don't look so like a startled hare--I am speaking no
treason."

The clergyman floundered a moment, as is usual with an absent man who is
recovering the train of his ideas, or a somnambulist when he is suddenly
awakened, and then answered, still with hesitation,--

"Mowbr