The festivities of Harbledown Hall were at an end, the amateur theatricals had been given--to the great delight of those performing in them, and to the excessive misery of those witnessing them--on two successive nights: the first to the invited neighbouring gentry, the second to the tenantry and servants. The guests were dispersed to various other country houses, and among them Miss Orpington and her father had taken their departure; but not to the same destination: the young lady, under the chaperonage of her aunt, was going to stay with some people, the head of whose family was an eminent tea-broker in the City, who, some years before, would not have been received into what is called society, but who was now so enormously rich that society found it could not possibly do without him. Society dined with him and danced with him at his house in Hyde Park Gardens, invited his wife and his daughter to all sorts of entertainments during the season, voted his two ugly dumpy sons the pleasantest fellows in Europe, and went regularly to stay with him during the autumn at his most charming country place at Brookside near Hastings. As an acknowledgment of all these kindnesses the tea-broker had caused himself to be put into Parliament, and took his place with tolerable punctuality amongst the conscript fathers, never failing in obedience to the suggestions of the whip of his party, and, when he was not in the smoking-room, sleeping the sleep of the righteous on the back benches of the House. The party at Brookside promised this year to be a particularly agreeable one; and as Miss Orpington had arranged for an introduction with the Yorkshire baronet with money, and that gentleman saw his way to unlimited sport during the day and unlimited flirtation during the evening, they agreed to console themselves even for the absence of the young lady's papa. For Colonel Orpington was not going to Brookside. His daughter, as he said, had her aunt to look after her, and her intended to amuse her; and though there was nothing to be said against Skegby--that being the name of the tea-broker--who was a very good fellow, a self-made man, honour to British commerce, and that kind of thing, and was received everywhere, yet there were some people going to Brookside that the Colonel didn't care about meeting; and so, as the house in Hill Street was ready, he should go and take up his quarters there for a time--at all events until he had occasion to inspect the works and quarries in South Wales. All his friends being still away from London, it was natural that the Colonel should seek for consolation in the resources of that new acquaintance which he had so recently made. He had met Fanny Stafford several times in the Park, and she had so far relaxed from her rigid formality as to accept two or three little dinners from him, as good as his taste could command and Verrey could supply, at which Madame Clarisse was always present.