I was speaking just now of the growing tendency to desert the country in favour of London. I said that it was difficult to feel sympathy with people who voluntarily abandon Home, and all the duties and pleasures which Home implies, in favour of Lennox Gardens or Portman Square; but that one felt a lively compassion for those who make the exchange under the pressure of-- "Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear." Here, again, is another social change. In old days, when people wished to economize, it was London that they deserted. They sold the "family mansion" in Portland Place or Eaton Square; and, if they revisited the glimpses of the social moon, they took a furnished house for six weeks in the summer: the rest of the year they spent in the country. This plan was a manifold saving. There was no rent to pay, and only very small rates, for every one knows that country houses were shamefully under-assessed. Carriages did not require repainting every season, and no new clothes were wanted. "What can it matter what we wear here, where every one knows who we are?" The products of the park, the home farm, the hothouses, and the kitchen-garden kept the family supplied with food. A brother magnate staying at Beaudesert with the famous Lord Anglesey waxed enthusiastic over the mutton, and said, "Excuse my asking you a plain question, but how much does this excellent mutton cost you?" "Cost me?" screamed the hero. "Good Gad, it costs me nothing! It's my own," and he was beyond measure astonished when his statistical guest proved that "his own" cost him about a guinea per pound. In another great house, conducted on strictly economical lines, it was said that the very numerous family were reared exclusively on rabbits and garden-stuff, and that their enfeebled constitutions and dismal appearance in later life were due to this ascetic regimen. People were always hospitable in the country, but rural entertaining was not a very costly business. The "three square meals and a snack," which represent the minimum requirement of the present day, are a huge development of the system which prevailed in my youth. Breakfast had already grown from the tea and coffee, and rolls and eggs, which Macaulay tells us were deemed sufficient at Holland House, to an affair of covered dishes. Luncheon-parties were sometimes given--terrible ceremonies which lasted from two to four; but the ordinary luncheon of the family was really a snack from the servants' joint or the children's rice-pudding; and five o'clock tea was actually not invented. To remember, as I do, the foundress of that divine refreshment seems like having known Stephenson or Jenner.