At dinner they met again, after a five and twenty mile walk, undertaken by the males at Wardle’s recommendation, to get rid of the effects of the wine at breakfast; the poor relations had lain in bed all day, with the view of attaining the same happy consummation, but, as they had been unsuccessful, they stopped there. Mr. Weller kept the domestics in a state of perpetual hilarity; and the fat boy divided his time into small alternate allotments of eating and sleeping. The dinner was as hearty an affair as the breakfast, and was quite as noisy, without the tears. Then came the dessert and some more toasts. Then came the tea and coffee; and then, the ball. [Illustration: _A five and twenty mile walk, undertaken by the males at Wardle’s recommendation._ ] The best sitting room at Manor Farm was a good, long, dark pannelled room with a high chimney piece, and a capacious chimney, up which you could have driven one of the new patent cabs, wheels and all. At the upper end of the room, seated in a shady bower of holly and evergreens, were the two best fiddlers, and the only harp, in all Muggleton. In all sorts of recesses, and on all kinds of brackets, stood massive old silver candlesticks with four branches each. The carpet was up, the candles burnt bright, the fire blazed and crackled on the hearth; and merry voices and light-hearted laughter rang through the room. If any of the old English yeomen had turned into fairies when they died, it was just the place in which they would have held their revels. If any thing could have added to the interest of this agreeable scene, it would have been the remarkable fact of Mr. Pickwick’s appearing without his gaiters, for the first time within the memory of his oldest friends. “You mean to dance?” said Wardle. “Of course I do,” replied Mr. Pickwick, “Don’t you see I am dressed for the purpose?” and Mr. Pickwick called attention to his speckled silk stockings, and smartly tied pumps. “_You_ in silk stockings!” exclaimed Mr. Tupman, jocosely. “And why not Sir—why not?” said Mr. Pickwick, turning warmly upon him. “Oh, of course there is no reason why you shouldn’t wear them,” responded Mr. Tupman. “I imagine not Sir—I imagine not,” said Mr. Pickwick in a very peremptory tone. Mr. Tupman had contemplated a laugh, but he found it was a serious matter; so he looked grave, and said they were a very pretty pattern. “I hope they are,” said Mr. Pickwick fixing his eyes upon his friend. “You see nothing extraordinary in these stockings, _as_ stockings, I trust Sir?” “Certainly not—oh certainly not,” replied Mr. Tupman. He walked away; and Mr. Pickwick’s countenance resumed its customary benign expression. “We are all ready, I believe,” said Mr. Pickwick, who was stationed with the old lady at the top of the dance, and had already made four false starts, in his excessive anxiety to commence. “Then begin at once,” said Wardle. “Now.”