Our party, on the 5th of November, passed off very well, in spite
of Mrs. Graham's refusal to grace it with her presence. Indeed, it
is probable that, had she been there, there would have been less
cordiality, freedom, and frolic amongst us than there was without
her.

My mother, as usual, was cheerful and chatty, full of activity and
good-nature, and only faulty in being too anxious to make her
guests happy, thereby forcing several of them to do what their soul
abhorred in the way of eating or drinking, sitting opposite the
blazing fire, or talking when they would be silent. Nevertheless,
they bore it very well, being all in their holiday humours.

Mr. Millward was mighty in important dogmas and sententious jokes,
pompous anecdotes and oracular discourses, dealt out for the
edification of the whole assembly in general, and of the admiring
Mrs. Markham, the polite Mr. Lawrence, the sedate Mary Millward,
the quiet Richard Wilson, and the matter-of-fact Robert in
particular, - as being the most attentive listeners.

Mrs. Wilson was more brilliant than ever, with her budgets of fresh
news and old scandal, strung together with trivial questions and
remarks, and oft-repeated observations, uttered apparently for the
sole purpose of denying a moment's rest to her inexhaustible organs
of speech. She had brought her knitting with her, and it seemed as
if her tongue had laid a wager with her fingers, to outdo them in
swift and ceaseless motion.

Her daughter Jane was, of course, as graceful and elegant, as witty
and seductive, as she could possibly manage to be; for here were