" which,
unless they descend to vulgar romping, are the dreariest attempts at
conviviality possible to conceive; none of those dreadful and much-to-
be-avoided exactions and remissions of "forfeits," that plunge everybody
into embarrassing situations, and destroy, instead of creating,
sociability; none of those stock--so-called--"drawing-room
entertainments;" in fact, which always result in hopeless boredom. But,
we had a little music and part-singing: a little lively, general chit-
chat, in which all could join and each take a share: a few anecdotes
well told--a complete success, to be brief, in making us all feel
perfectly natural and at ease, for we were allowed to do and say exactly
what we pleased in moderation.

Each of us was made to feel that his or her absence would have detracted
from the happiness of the rest; and _that_ is the true art of treating
one's guests--an art which both the vicar and Miss Pimpernell had
apparently studied to perfection, although it really proceeded from
their natural good-heartedness.

But, amongst our company I had almost forgotten to enumerate the name of
Monsieur Parole d'Honneur, one of the nicest of French emigres and a
dear friend of the vicar's; one known to most of us, also, for many
years.

Perhaps you may chance to remember the noise that the great Barnard
extradition case made in the newspapers--and, indeed, all over England
too, for that matter--in the year 1859?

You don't? Why, it nearly led to a war between France and Britain! Did
you never hear how the fiercely-moustachioed Gallic colonels swaggered
about the Boulogne cafes, loud in their denunciations of perfidious
Albion, while smoking their endless cigarettes and sipping their
poisonous absinthe; and how, but for the staunch fidelity of the ill-
fated Emperor Napoleon--since deserted by his quondam ally--and the
jaunty pluck of our then gallant premier, brave "old Pam"--whose loss we
have had ample reason, oftentimes of late, to deplore--there might have
been a sudden rupture of that "entente cordiale" between the two
nations, which was cemented in the Crimea, and expired but a couple of
years ago under the besieged walls of Paris?

Ah! that was a time when the whilom "Cupid's" boast, "Civis Anglicanus
sum," was not an empty claim, as it is in these days of poverty-stricken
"retrenchments," and senile forfeitures of all that made England great
and grand through five hundred years of history!

But the Ba