The attempt to accommodate a company to which the house was unsuited would have been a source of painful annoyance to most men. To Peter Dalton it was unqualified pleasure. The subversion of all previous arrangements, the total change in the whole order of domesticity, were his delight The changing of rooms, the being sent to sleep in strange and inconvenient corners, the hurry-scurry endeavors to find a substitute for this or a representative for that, the ingenious devices to conceal a want or to supply a deficiency, afforded him the most lively amusement; and he went about rubbing his hands, and muttering that it did his heart good. It was “so like Mount Dalton when he was a boy.” All Mrs. Ricketts's softest blandishments were so many charms clean thrown away. His thoughts were centred on himself and his own amiable qualities, and he revelled in the notion that the world did not contain another as truly generous and hospitable as Peter Dalton. In accordance with the singular contradictions of which his character was made up, he was willing to incur every sacrifice of personal inconvenience, if it only served to astonish some one, or excite a sensation of surprise at his good-nature; and while all Nelly's efforts were to conceal the inconveniences these hospitalities inflicted, Peter was never satisfied except when the display could reflect honor on himself, and exact a tribute of flattery from his guests. Nor was he all this time in ignorance of Mrs. Ricketts's character. With native shrewdness be had at once detected her as an “old soldier.” He saw the practised readiness of her compliance with everything; he saw the spirit of accommodation in which she met every plan or project. He knew the precise value of her softest look or her sweetest smile; and yet he was quite content with possessing the knowledge, without any desire to profit by it. Like one who sits down to play with sharpers, and resolves that either the stake shall be a trifle or the roguery be very limited, he surrendered himself to the fair Zoe's seductions with this sort of a reservation to guide him. If Mrs. Ricketts did not cheat him by her goodness, she took her revenge by the claims of her grandeur. Her intimacy with great people--the very greatest--exalted her to the highest place in Dalton's esteem. Honest Peter knew nothing of the years of toil and pain, the subtle arts, the deep devices, the slights, the affronts, the stern rebuffs here, the insolent denials there, by which these acquisitions, precarious as they were, had been won. He did not know how much of the royalty was left-handed, nor how much of the nobility was factitious. All he could see was the gracious salutes wafted to her from coroneted carriages, the soft smiles wafted from high places, the recognitions bestowed on her in the promenade, and the gracious nods that met her in the Cursaal.