The Douglas girls are totally divested of affectation. Whatever they say or do, is said and done without the slightest reference to _effect_ farther than this, that the best tact seems to regulate every word and action. The desire to impart pleasure makes them sure to please, and the dread of giving pain must, I think, render it impossible that they should wound one's feelings. Beyond this limit my cousins know no art. I fancy that I see a half-suppressed smile curling on your lip, as you exclaim, _mentally_ at least, "What a revolution! Why here is Howard talking sense like a doctor of the _Sorbonne_!" I confess to some very sober thoughts as I jogged on to Lisfarne; but as I was alone, I had nothing else to do except to muse and moralize; however, no triumph. I enter a caveat against any manner of rejoicing. I have not read my recantation, having a just dread of hasty judgments, and also of old Oliphant: he is the Mordecai sitting in my gate, and another week at Glenalta may bring out a very different story. In four-and-twenty hours Kill-joy will have arrived, and then comes Sunday, as if at one blow to crush one's spirits to annihilation. These were my lucubrations _en chemin faisant_, and just as I reached the hall-door at Lisfarne, the nine-o'clock bell ushered me in with _eclat_, though as little _hinging_ upon my _entrée_, as the thunder and lightning which happened to synchronise with the poor Jew's carousal over a pork steak at Genoa. I was met at the threshold by Mr. Otway, who smiled a delightful welcome, and, taking me by both hands, accosted me with, "My dear Howard, I am heartily glad to see you at Lisfarne, and not the less so, because you are _punctual_. You should have had your breakfast at _any_ hour; but I love to see young people recollective." I did not think it exactly _honest_ to appropriate this compliment of the old school to myself, as I certainly never deserved it in all my life, and therefore expressed my happiness at not having kept him waiting; but _handed_ over to Emily the whole merit of Cindarillaship in this my first visit at Lisfarne. "Emily is a charming creature," answered mine host, "but that is nothing wonderful at Glenalta, where such a mother presides. Howard, you have the good fortune to reckon amongst your nearest relations, a little group whose virtues would save the universe from destruction, were the divine vengeance to over-take a guilty world, as in days of yore.--How do you like your aunt and cousin?" "Extremely, were I to judge by what I have seen; but we are new to each other, and they are very kind in excusing all the blunders which a man wholly unused to retirement is liable to make in a circle where a much higher standard of moral feeling prevails than that which governs what we call 'the world.'" Mr. Otway looked benignly at me, saying, "Come, we must not get into a discussion now; you deserve your breakfast, and shall not be interrupted." And a capital breakfast we had.