'What is it, mamma? He's a dear old man, but surely what he says cannot make you really unhappy.'
'It is so hard to know what one ought to do. I did not mean to be selfish, but it seems to me as though I were doing the most selfish thing in the world.'
'Nay, mamma; it has been anything but selfish. Besides, it is we that have done it; not you.'
'Do you know, Lily, that I also have that feeling as to breaking up one's old mode of life of which Hopkins spoke. I thought that I should be glad to escape from this place, but now that the time has come I dread it.'
'Do you mean that you repent?'
Mrs Dale did not answer her daughter at once, fearing to commit herself by words which could not be retracted. But at last she said, 'Yes, Lily; I think I do repent. I think that it has not been well done.'
'Then let it be undone,' said Lily.
The dinner-party at Guestwick Manor on that day was not very bright, and yet the earl had done all in his power to make his guests happy. But gaiety did not come naturally to his house, which, as will have been seen, was an abode very unlike in its nature to that of the other earl at Courcy Castle. Lady de Courcy at any rate understood how to receive and entertain a houseful of people, though the practice of doing so might give rise to difficult questions in the privacy of her domestic relations. Lady Julia did not understand it; but then Lady Julia was never called upon to answer for the expense of extra servants, nor was she asked about twice a week who the –––– was to pay the wine-merchant's bill? As regards Lord De Guest and the Lady Julia themselves, I think they had the best of it; but I am bound to admit, with reference to chance guests, that the house was dull. The people who were now gathered at the earl's table could hardly have been expected to be very sprightly when in company with each other. The squire was not a man much given to general society, and was unused to amuse a table full of people. On the present occasion he sat next to Lady Julia, and from time to time muttered a few words to her about the state of the country. Mrs Eames was terribly afraid of everybody there, and especially of the earl, next to whom she sat, and whom she continually called 'my lord,' showing by her voice as she did so that she was almost alarmed by the sound of her own voice. Mr and Mrs Boyce were there, the parson sitting on the other side of Lady Julia, and the parson's wife on the other side of the earl. Mrs Boyce was very studious to show that she was quite at home, and talked perhaps more than any one else; but in doing so she bored the earl most exquisitely, so that he told John Eames the next morning that she was worse than the bull. The parson ate his dinner, but said little or nothing between the two graces. He was a heavy, sensible, slow man, who knew himself and his own powers. 'Uncommon good stewed beef,' he said, as he went home; 'why can't we have our beef stewed like that?' 'Because we don't pay our cook sixty pounds a year,' said Mrs Boyce. 'A woman with sixteen pounds can stew beef as well as a woman with sixty,' said he; 'she only wants looking after.' The earl himself was possessed of a sort of gaiety. There was about him a lightness of spirit which often made him an agreeable companion to one single person. John Eames conceived him to be the most sprightly old man of his day,—an old man with the fun and frolic almost of a boy. But this spirit, though it would show itself before John Eames, was not up to the entertainment of John Eames's mother and sister, together with the squire, the parson, and the parson's wife of Allington. So that the earl was over-weighted and did not shine on this occasion at his own dinner-table. Dr Crofts, who had also been invited, and who had secured the place which was now peculiarly his own, next to Bell Dale, was no doubt happy enough; as, let us hope, was the young lady also; but they added very little to the general hilarity of the company. John Eames was seated between his own sister and the parson, and did not at all enjoy his position. He had a full view of the doctor's felicity, as the happy pair sat opposite to him, and conceived himself to be hardly treated by Lily's absence. The party was certainly very dull, as were all such dinners at Guestwick Manor. There are houses, which, in their everyday course, are not conducted by any means in a sad or unsatisfactory manner,—in which life, as a rule, runs along merrily enough; but which cannot give a dinner-party; or, I might rather say, should never allow themselves to be allured into the attempt. The owners of such houses are generally themselves quite aware of the fact, and dread the dinner which they resolved to give quite as much as it is dreaded by their friends. They know that they prepare for their guests an evening of misery, and for themselves certain long hours of purgatory which are hardly to be endured. But they will do it. Why that long table, and all those supernumerary glasses and knives and forks, if they are never to be used? That argument produces all this misery; that and others cognate to it. On the present occasion, no doubt, there were excuses to be made. The squire and his niece had been invited on special cause, and their presence would have been well enough. The doctor added in would have done no harm. It was good-natured, too, that invitation given to Mrs Eames and her daughter. The error lay in the parson and his wife. There was no necessity for their being there, nor had they any ground on which to stand, except the party-giving ground. Mr and Mrs Boyce made the dinner-party, and destroyed the social circle. Lady Julia knew that she had been wrong as soon as she had sent out the note.
