Among the periodical hospitalities with which the vicar,--for Mr. Cartwright was still Vicar of Wrexhill,--among his periodical hospitalities was a weekly morning party, which opened by prayers read by his curate, and ended by a blessing pronounced by himself. At about two o'clock a déjeûner à la fourchette was laid in the dining-room, around which were discussed all the serious, and serio-political, and serio-literary subjects of the day. On this occasion the selection of company, though always pious, was not so aristocratical as at the pompous dinners occasionally given at the Park. But what was lost to vanity on one side by the unconspicuous rank of some of the guests, was gained to it on the other by the profound veneration for their host expressed in every word and in every look. Not only Mr. Corbold, the lawyer,--who was indeed in some sort ennobled by his relationship to the great man himself,--but the new curate, and the new apothecary, and even the new schoolmaster, were admitted. The company were always received by Mr. Cartwright and his lady in the drawing-room, where all the family were expected (that is, commanded on pain of very heavy displeasure) to assemble round them. The tables were covered with bibles, tracts, Evangelical Magazines, sanctified drawings, and missionary begging machines. Hardly could Chivers, who was become an example to all serious butlers in voice, in look, and in step, produce a more delightful sensation on his master's organs by announcing my Lord This, or my Lady That, than that master received from watching the reverential bows of the sycophants who hung upon his patronage. A sort of frozen blandishment on these occasions smoothed his proud face as he stood, with his lady beside him, to receive them. The tall, obsequious curate, who hardly dared to say his soul was his own, though he freely took upon himself to pronounce the destiny of other people's, bent before him, lower than mortal ever need bend to mortal; and he was rewarded for it by being permitted to aspire to the hand of the only daughter of Mr. Cartwright, of Cartwright Park. The little round apothecary, who by evangelical aid withal had pushed out his predecessor as effectually as ever pellet did pellet in a popgun, sighed, whined, bought tracts, expounded them, kneeled down, though almost too fat to get up again, and would have done aught else that to a canting doctor's art belongs so that it were not physically impossible, for one sole object, which for some months past had hardly quitted his thoughts by day or by night. This lofty object of ambition and of hope was the attending the lady of Mr. Cartwright, of Cartwright Park, at her approaching accouchement.