There was nothing now left for Lord Spoonbill to do but to sigh over his calamitous loss as deeply as he could, and to explain to his father, as ingeniously as might be, the singular event of the sudden departure of Mr Primrose and his daughter from London, at the very moment when a right honorable suitor for the young lady's hand had started up in the person of Lord Spoonbill. The son said it was very strange, and the father also thought it was very strange, and he recommended his son not to have any farther correspondence with persons who could behave thus disrespectfully. But the young gentleman was too much enamoured to listen to such advice, and he exercised most heartily all his little wits to devise means of carrying on his suit to Penelope. For the present we must leave his loving lordship in London, enjoying all the luxuries and splendors which gas, fog, smoke, foolery, wax candles, painted faces, late hours, French cookery, Italian music, prosy dancing, Whig politics, and patrician scandal, could afford him. It is far more to our taste to follow Mr Primrose and his daughter into the country than to remain with Lord Spoonbill in London. If any of our readers wish to know what Lord Spoonbill did with himself in London, they may form a tolerably correct idea from ascertaining how the rest of that tribe occupy their time. He was a very fashionable man, he knew all the common-places perfectly, and with his own set he was quite at home. There let us leave him. Mr Primrose and Penelope travelled to Smatterton in perfect safety; and the father congratulated himself and his daughter upon their safe arrival, observing that had they ventured to use the stage-coach instead of post-chaises, they would certainly have had their necks broken at the bottom of some steep hill. Their reception at Smatterton parsonage was most cordial and highly courteous. Nothing could exceed the happiness of the young rector in receiving under his roof so respected a friend as Mr Primrose. Preparations had been made according to the best of the young clergyman's ability; and, as Mr Primrose's letter mentioned the day and the hour of his arrival, Mr Pringle thought that he could not do otherwise than make a party to meet the gentleman at dinner.