Chapter 6

"Marry, our play is the most lamentable Comedy, and most cruel
death of Pyramus and Thisby."

PETER QUINCE.

Our task in the way of describing town society will soon be ended.
The gentlemen of the Effingham family had been invited to meet Sir
George Templemore at one or two dinners, to which the latter had been
invited in consequence of his letters, most of which were connected
with his pecuniary arrangements. As one of these entertainments was
like all the rest of the same character, a very brief account of it
will suffice to let the reader into the secret of the excellence of
the genus.

A well-spread board, excellent viands, highly respectable cookery,
and delicious wines, were every where met. Two rows of men clad in
dark dresses, a solitary female at the head of the table, or, if
fortunate, with a supporter of the same sex near her, invariably
composed the _convives_. The exaggerations of a province were seen
ludicrously in one particular custom. The host, or perhaps it might
have been the hostess, had been told there should be a contrast
between the duller light of the reception-room, and the brilliancy of
the table, and John Effingham actually hit his legs against a stool,
in floundering through the obscurity of the first drawing-room he
entered on one of the occasions in question.

When seated at table, the first great duty of restauration performed,
the conversation turned on the prices of lots, speculations in towns,
or the currency. After this came the regular assay of wines, during
which it was easy to fancy the master of the house a dealer, for he
usually sat either sucking a syphon or flourishing a cork-screw. The
discourse would now have done credit to the annual meeting and dinner
of the German exporters, assembled at Rudesheim to bid for the
article.

Sir George was certainly on the point of forming a very erroneous
judgment concerning the country, when Mr. Effingham extricated him
from this set, and introduced him properly into his own. Here,
indeed, while there was much to strike a European as peculiar, and
even provincial, the young baronet fared much better. He met with the
same quality of table, relieved by an intelligence that was always
respectable, and a manliness of tone which, if not unmixed, had the
great merit of a simplicity and nature that are not always found in
more sophisticated circles. The occasional incongruities struck them
all, more than the positive general faults and Sir George Templemore
did justice to the truth, by admitting frankly, the danger he had
been in of forming a too hasty opinion.

All this time, which occupied a month, the young baronet got to be
more and more intimate in Hudson Square, Eve gradually