_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—You will sit on old chairs, round an old table, by the light of old lamps, suspended from pointed arches, which, Mr. Chainmail says, first came into use in the twelfth century, with old armour on the pillars and old banners in the roof. _Lady Clarinda_.—And what curious piece of antiquity is the lady of the mansion? _The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—No antiquity there; none. _Lady Clarinda_.—Who was she? _The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—That I know not. _Lady Clarinda_.—Have you seen her? _The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—I have. _Lady Clarinda_.—Is she pretty? _The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.—More,—beautiful. A subject for the pen of Nonnus or the pencil of Zeuxis. Features of all loveliness, radiant with all virtue and intelligence. A face for Antigone. A form at once plump and symmetrical, that, if it be decorous to divine it by externals, would have been a model for the Venus of Cnidos. Never was anything so goodly to look on, the present company excepted; and poor dear Mrs. Folliott. She reads moral philosophy, Mr. Mac Quedy, which indeed she might as well let alone; she reads Italian poetry, Mr. Skionar; she sings Italian music, Mr. Trillo; but, with all this, she has the greatest of female virtues, for she superintends the household and looks after her husband’s dinner. I believe she was a mountaineer: Ηαρθένος ὀυρεσίφοιτος, ἐρήμαδι σύντροφος ὕλῃ {175} as Nonnus sweetly sings. CHAPTER XVIII. CHAINMAIL HALL. Vous autres dictes que ignorance est mère de tous maulx, et dictes vray: mais toutesfoys vous ne la bannissez mye de vos entendemens, et vivez en elle, avecques elle, et par elle. C’est pourquoy tant de maulx vous meshaignent de jour en jour.—RABELIAS, 1. 5. c. 7. THE party which was assembled on Christmas Day in Chainmail Hall comprised all the guests of Crotchet Castle, some of Mr. Chainmail’s other neighbours, all his tenants and domestics, and Captain Fitzchrome. The hall was spacious and lofty; and with its tall fluted pillars and pointed arches, its windows of stained glass, its display of arms and banners intermingled with holly and mistletoe, its blazing cressets and torches, and a stupendous fire in the centre, on which blocks of pine were flaming and crackling, had a striking effect on eyes unaccustomed to such a dining-room. The fire was open on all sides, and the smoke was caught and carried back under a funnel-formed canopy into a hollow central pillar. This fire was the line of demarcation between gentle and simple on days of high festival. Tables extended from it on two sides to nearly the end of the hall.