THOUGH Kenelm left Luscombe on Tuesday morning, he did not appear at Neesdale Park till the Wednesday, a little before the dressing-bell for dinner. His adventures in the interim are not worth repeating. He had hoped he might fall in again with the minstrel, but he did not. His portmanteau had arrived, and he heaved a sigh as he cased himself in a gentleman’s evening dress. “Alas! I have soon got back again into my own skin.” There were several other guests in the house, though not a large party,--they had been asked with an eye to the approaching election,--consisting of squires and clergy from remoter parts of the county. Chief among the guests in rank and importance, and rendered by the occasion the central object of interest, was George Belvoir. Kenelm bore his part in this society with a resignation that partook of repentance. The first day he spoke very little, and was considered a very dull young man by the lady he took in to dinner. Mr. Travers in vain tried to draw him out. He had anticipated much amusement from the eccentricities of his guest, who had talked volubly enough in the fernery, and was sadly disappointed. “I feel,” he whispered to Mrs. Campion, “like poor Lord Pomfret, who, charmed with Punch’s lively conversation, bought him, and was greatly surprised that, when he had once brought him home, Punch would not talk.” “But your Punch listens,” said Mrs. Campion, “and he observes.” George Belvoir, on the other hand, was universally declared to be very agreeable. Though not naturally jovial, he forced himself to appear so,--laughing loud with the squires, and entering heartily with their wives and daughters into such topics as county-balls and croquet-parties; and when after dinner he had, Cato-like, ‘warmed his virtue with wine,’ the virtue came out very lustily in praise of good men,--namely, men of his own party,--and anathemas on bad men,--namely, men of the other party. Now and then he appealed to Kenelm, and Kenelm always returned the same answer, “There is much in what you say.” The first evening closed in the usual way in country houses. There was some lounging under moonlight on the terrace before the house; then there was some singing by young lady amateurs, and a rubber of whist for the elders; then wine-and-water, hand-candlesticks, a smoking-room for those who smoked, and bed for those who did not.