Redclyffe sat down, and sipped his claret, feeling a little ashamed of himself, as people are apt to do after a display of this kind.
"You know the way to the English heart better than I do," remarked his Lordship, after a polite compliment to the speech. "Methinks these dull English are being improved in your atmosphere. The English need a change every few centuries,--either by immigration of new stock, or transportation of the old,--or else they grow too gross and earthly, with their beef, mutton, and ale. I think, now, it might benefit both countries, if your New England population were to be reciprocally exchanged with an equal number of Englishmen. Indeed, Italians might do as well."
"I should regret," said Redclyffe, "to change the English, heavy as they are."
"You are an admirable Englishman," said his Lordship. "For my part, I cannot say that the people are very much to my taste, any more than their skies and climate, in which I have shivered during the two years that I have spent here."
Here their conversation ceased; and Redclyffe listened to a long train of speechifying, in the course of which everybody, almost, was toasted; everybody present, at all events, and many absent. The Warden's old wine was not spared; the music rang and resounded from the gallery; and everybody seemed to consider it a model feast, although there were no very vivid signs of satisfaction, but a decorous, heavy enjoyment, a dull red heat of pleasure, without flame. Soda and seltzer-water, and coffee, by and by were circulated; and at a late hour the company began to retire.
Before taking his departure, Lord Braithwaite resumed his conversation with Redclyffe, and, as it appeared, with the purpose of making a hospitable proposition.
"I live very much alone," said he, "being insulated from my neighbors by many circumstances,--habits, religion, and everything else peculiarly English. If you are curious about old English modes of life, I can show you, at least, an English residence, little altered within a century past. Pray come and spend a week with me before you leave this part of the country. Besides, I know the court to which you are accredited, and can give you, perhaps, useful information about it."