The change of dress, the dinner, the dessert, seasoned with the _newest news_ of the fashionable world, which the visitors thought must be of all things the most delightful to the mountain recluse, filled up a portion of the evening. When they returned from the dining-room to the library, the windows were closed, the curtains drawn, and the tea and coffee urns bubbling on the table, and sending up their steamy columns: an old fashion to be sure, and sufficiently rustic, for which we apologise in due form to the reader, who prefers his tea and coffee brought in cool by the butler in little cups on a silver salver, and handed round to the simpering company till it is as cold as an Iceland spring. There is no disputing about taste, and the taste of Melincourt Castle on this subject had been always very poetically unfashionable; for the tea would have satisfied Johnson, and the coffee enchanted Voltaire. ‘I must confess, my dear,’ said the Honourable Mrs. Pinmoney, ‘there is a great deal of comfort in your way of living, that is, there would be, in good company; but you are so solitary——’ ‘Here is the best of company,’ said Anthelia, smiling, and pointing to the shelves of the library. _The Hon. Mrs. Pinmoney._ Very true: books are very good things in their way; but an hour or two at most is quite enough of them for me; more can serve no purpose but to muddle one’s head. If I were to live such a life for a week as you have done for the last twelve months, I should have more company than I like, in the shape of a whole legion of blue devils. _Miss Danaretta._ Nay, I think there is something delightfully romantic in Anthelia’s mode of life; but I confess I should like now and then, peeping through the ivy of the battlements, to observe a _preux chevalier_ exerting all his eloquence to persuade the inflexible porter to open the castle gates, and allow him one opportunity of throwing himself at the feet of the divine lady of the castle, for whom he had been seven years dying a lingering death. _The Hon. Mrs. Pinmoney._ And growing fatter all the while. Heaven defend me from such hypocritical fops! Seven years indeed! It did not take as many weeks to bring me and poor dear dead Mr. Pinmoney together. _Anthelia._ I should have been afraid that so short an acquaintance would scarcely have been sufficient to acquire that mutual knowledge of each other’s tastes, feelings, and character, which I should think the only sure basis of matrimonial happiness.