"To-morrow I am pre-engaged to an excursion with Mr. Bowles. That may
occupy two or three days, and meanwhile I must write home for other
garments than those in which I am a sham."

"Come any day you like."

"Agreed."

"Agreed; and, hark! the supper-bell."

"Supper," said Kenelm, offering his arm to Miss Travers,--"supper is a
word truly interesting, truly poetical. It associates itself with the
entertainments of the ancients, with the Augustan age, with Horace and
Maecenas; with the only elegant but too fleeting period of the modern
world; with the nobles and wits of Paris, when Paris had wits and
nobles; with Moliere and the warm-hearted Duke who is said to have
been the original of Moliere's Misanthrope; with Madame de Sevigne and
the Racine whom that inimitable letter-writer denied to be a poet;
with Swift and Bolingbroke; with Johnson, Goldsmith, and Garrick.
Epochs are signalized by their eatings. I honour him who revives the
Golden Age of suppers." So saying, his face brightened.



CHAPTER VI.


KENELM CHILLINGLY, ESQ., TO SIR PETER CHILLINGLY, BART., ETC.