Every one bad arrived, and after a chilling delay, Potts, the local fishmonger, who had been a butler, and who went out to wait at dinner-parties, and was as familiar a figure as a saddle of mutton or a cod’s head and shoulders, made his solemn announcement, and with an anxious mind, Mrs. Baynham saw her guests parade across the narrow hall somewhat overfurnished with stags’ heads, barometers, gig-whips and umbrella-stands, to the dining-room, while a hot blast of roast meat burst fiercely from the adjacent kitchen. Mrs. Baynham had allotted Isola to Mr. Crowther, determined to carry out her idea of bringing about a friendly feeling. Mr. Baynham took Mrs. Crowther, and Captain Pentreath had the privilege of escorting Belinda, whose sentiments and airs and graces of every kind he knew by heart. There was no more excitement in such companionship than in going in to dinner with his grandmother. What is the use of being brought in continual association with a handsome heiress if you know yourself a detrimental? “She would no more look at me as a lover than she would at a Pariah dog,” said the captain, when some officious boon companion at the club suggested that he should enter himself for the Crowther Stakes. Captain Hulbert was made happy with Allegra, and Colonel Disney was honoured by his hostess, to whom strict etiquette would have prescribed the peer’s son. There was surplus female population in the persons of Alicia Crowther and Mary Baynham, who agreeably adorned each side of the table with a little extra sweetness and light; Miss Baynham, buxom and rosy in a white cashmere frock which she had grown out of since her last dinner-party; Miss Crowther, square shouldered and bony, in a black confection by Worth, with a bloated diamond heart making a mirage upon a desert waste of chest, it being a point of honour with thin girls to be more _décoletées_ than their plumper sisters. Mrs. Baynham’s conversation at one of her own dinners was apt to be somewhat distracted and inconsecutive in substance, although she maintained a smiling and delighted air all the time, whatever anxieties might be wearing her spirit--anxieties about the cooking and the attendance--angry wonder at the prolonged absence of the parlour-maid--distress at seeing the lobster sauce dragging its slow length along when people had nearly finished the turbot--agonizing fears lest the _vol au vent_ should not last out after that enormous help taken by Captain Pentreath, in sheer absence of mind, perhaps, since he only messed it about on his plate, while he bored Miss Crowther with a prosy account of his latest victory over an obstinate demon of the Jack family--“such a devil of a fellow, three feet long, and with jaws like a crocodile.”