farmer's family, a hundred kisses from the bride to the children,
and promises twenty times reclaimed and renewed, to visit them in
the ensuing year.



CHAPTER XVII: THE INVITATION



A cup of wine, that's brisk and fine,
And drink unto the lemon mine.
Master Silence.

This veridicous history began in May, and the occurrences already
narrated have carried it on to the middle of autumn. Stepping over
the interval to Christmas, we find ourselves in our first locality,
among the chalk hills of the Thames; and we discover our old
friend, Mr. Crotchet, in the act of accepting an invitation, for
himself, and any friends who might be with him, to pass their
Christmas Day at Chainmail Hall, after the fashion of the twelfth
century. Mr. Crochet had assembled about him, for his own
Christmas festivities, nearly the same party which was introduced
to the reader in the spring. Three of that party were wanting.
Dr. Morbific, by inoculating himself once too often with non-
contagious matter, had explained himself out of the world. Mr.
Henbane had also departed, on the wings of an infallible antidote.
Mr. Eavesdrop, having printed in a magazine some of the after-
dinner conversations of the castle, had had sentence of exclusion
passed upon him, on the motion of the Reverend Doctor Folliott, as