Charles however was waited for, and that for at least three times the period he had named; but he came at last, and the walk was taken, and the birds sang, and the brook sparkled, and the health was drunk cordially, even by Rosalind; and the gay party returned in time to see the first carriage approach, bearing guests invited to be present at the tenants' dinner in the Park. Their morning toilet was hastily readjusted, as another and another equipage rolled onwards towards the house; and then the business of the day began. Lords and ladies, knights and squires, yeomen and peasants, were seen riding, driving, running, and walking through the spacious park in all directions. Then followed the rustic fête and the joyous carouse, in which the name of Charles Mowbray made the welkin ring; and then, the company having retreated to the house, came the hurried steps of a dozen lady's-maids hastening to their various scenes of action, and valets converting closets of all sorts and sizes into dressing-rooms for unnumbered gentlemen; and then the banquet, and then the coffee and the short repose--and then the crowded ball. All this came and went in order, and without the intervention of a single circumstance that might mar the enjoyment of a day long set apart for happiness, and which began and ended more exactly according to the wishes and intentions of those who arranged its festivities than often falls out at galas planned by mortals. At five o'clock on the following morning the joyous din at length sank into silence, and as many as hospitable ingenuity could find room for lay down at Mowbray Park to enjoy again in dreams the untarnished gaiety of that happy day. CHAPTER II. THE MORNING AFTER THE BIRTHDAY. Even the stable-boys deemed themselves privileged to sleep later than usual on the day after; and the ploughboy, as he went afield, missed the merry smile of the park dairy-maid, who, like her superiors, seemed to think on such an occasion time was made for very vulgar souls indeed, and that none who had joined in so illustrious a gala, could be expected to recover the full possession of their waking senses for some hours after the usual time. By slow degrees, however, the different members of the establishment began to stretch themselves and give sign of reviving animation. The housemaids yawningly opened the window-shutters; the footmen crept after them to aid in removing from one room at least the traces of the jubilee, which, like the relics of a lamp that has burnt out, showed but the more unsightly from its past splendour; and at length, to a superficial eye, the breakfast-room looked like the breakfast-room of former years; though a more discriminating glance might have detected girandoles where no such things had ever glittered before, card-tables in the place of work-tables, and flowers, still blooming in situations as little usual to them as a bed of strawberries would have been the day before.