We find upon inquiry that our hotel so far infringes upon primitive Welsh manners as to provide a _table-d'hote_ dinner at six. This is most welcome news, and we become at once part of the company which sits down to the table d'hote. There are ten people besides ourselves, and not a commonplace or colorless character among them. My left-hand neighbor is a somewhat slangy young gentleman in a suit of chequered clothes, who carves the meats, being at the head of the table; and my happy propinquity secures me the honor of selection by the young gentleman as the recipient of his observations: a toughish round of beef which he is called upon to carve evokes from him an aside to the effect that it is "rather a dose." The foot of the table is held by an old gentleman in a black stock, with a tuft of wiry hair on the front part of his head, and none whatever on any other part, who carves a fowl, and in asking the diners which part they severally prefer accompanies the question with a brisk sharpening of his knife on his fork, but without making the least noise in doing it. My chequered neighbor having advertised the toughness of the beef, everybody murmurs a purpose of indulging in fowl, at which my neighbor observes aside to me that he is "rather jolly glad," and the butler takes the beef away. The dish next set before him proving a matter of spoons merely, his relief at not being obliged to carve finds vent in a whispered "Hooray!" for my exclusive amusement. One unfortunate individual has accepted a helping of beef, however--a bald-headed man in spectacles, not hitherto unaccustomed to good living, if one might judge by his rounded proportions. It is painful to witness his struggles with the beef, which he maintains with the earnestness of a man who means to conquer or perish in the endeavor. Opposite sits as fair a type of a ripe British beauty of the middle class as I have anywhere seen--with a complexion of snow, a mouth like a red bud and eyes as beautiful and expressive as those of a splendid large wax doll, her hair drawn tensely back and rolled into billowy puffs, with a rose atop. It is sad, in looking on a picture like this--superb in its suggestions of pure rich blood and abounding health--to reflect that such a rose will develop into a red peony in ten years. I do not say the peony will not have her own strong recommendings to the eye: we may not despise a peony, but it is impossible not to regret that a rose should turn into one. There is a very good example of the peony sort near the foot of the table--quite a magnificent creature in her way. Her husband, who sits next her, is a fiercely-bearded man, but has a strange air of being in his wife's custody nevertheless. The lady is apparently forty-five, red to a fault, full in the neck, and with a figure which necessitates a somewhat haughty pose of the head unless one would appear gross and piggish. There is much to admire in this lady, peony though she be.