People may talk about country pleasures and country duties and all the charms of country life; but it appears to me that a good many things are done under the titles of pleasure and duty which belong in reality to neither; and that those who live entirely in the country inflict on themselves a great variety of unnecessary disagreeables, as they lose a great many of its chief delights. Of all receipts for weariness commend me to a dinner-party of country neighbours by _daylight_--people who know each other just well enough to have opposite interests and secret jealousies--who arrive ill at ease in their smart dresses, to sit through a protracted meal with hot servants and forced conversation, till one young lady on her promotion being victimized at the pianoforte enables them to yawn unobserved; and welcome ten o'clock brings round the carriage and tipsy coachman, in order that they may enter on their long, dark, dreary drive home through lanes and by-ways, which is only endurable from the consideration that the annual ordeal has been accomplished, and that they need not do it again till this time next year. There was a dinner-party at Dangerfield regularly once a month, and this was the day. Aunt Horsingham was great on these occasions, astonishing the neighbours as much with her London dresses as did Cousin Amelia with her London manners. We all assembled a few minutes earlier than usual in the drawing-room, so as to be ready to receive our guests, and great was the infliction on poor Aunt Deborah and my humble self. How they trooped in, one after another! Sir Brian and Lady Banneret and Master Banneret and two Misses Banneret; these were the great cards of the party; so Lady Horsingham kissed Lady Banneret and the young ladies, and opined Master Banneret was _grown_, much to the indignation of that young gentleman, who, being an Oxonian, of course considered himself _a man_. Sir Brian was a good-humoured jolly old boy, with a loud laugh, and stood with his coat-tails lifted and his back to the empty fireplace in perfect ease and contentment. Not so his lady; first she scrutinized everything Lady Horsingham had got on, then she took a review of the furniture, and specially marked one faded place in the carpet. Lastly, she turned a curious and disappointed glance on myself. I accounted for the latter mark of displeasure by the becoming shade of my gown; I knew it was a pretty one, and would meet with feminine censure accordingly. The Bannerets were soon followed by Mr. and Mrs. Plumridge, a newly-married couple, who were _feted_ accordingly. Mr. Plumridge was a light-haired, unmeaning-looking individual, partially bald, with a blue coat and white satin neckcloth; his bride a lively, sarcastic, black-eyed little woman, who must have married him for her own convenience--they said afterwards she was once a governess; but at all events she held her own handsomely when alone with the ladies after dinner, and partly