curtain, and peered into the house, first floor, garret and cellar."

"You overrate my learning, Lady Mabel; my tastes naturally lead me to
inform myself on some points that may seem to lie out of the common
road. Some people take the liberty of calling me an epicure. I admit
it so far as this: I hold it to be our duty to enjoy ourselves wisely
and well. Much as I esteem a knowing _bon vivant_, I despise an
ignorant glutton, or undiscriminating sot. To know how to make the
most of the good things given us, is, at once, a duty and a
pleasure. This conviction has led me to heighten what are called our
epicurean enjoyments, by investigating the history of cookery, the
literature of the vineyard, and other cognate branches of learning."

"You have devised a happy union of intellectual and sensual pleasure,
well calculated to heighten both."

"Why were these good things given us," said the colonel, gracefully
waving his hand over the table, "but that we should ascertain their
uses, and apply them accordingly?"

"I begin to understand your philosophy, in letting none of the good
things of life run to waste, but rather receiving them all in the
spirit of thankfulness."

"In those few words you express the essence of my philosophy."

"There may be," continued Lady Mabel, "as much piety, and certainly
more wisdom, in frankly enjoying the good things given us, than in
despising the world which God made, and rejecting the blessings it
teems with, like these self-tormenting ascetics, the monks and friars