The mansion and grounds of Mr. Cartwright's residence began to give note of very great and splendid preparation for this serious fête. Never had the reverend vicar been seen in such spirits on any former occasion; "His bosom's lord sat lightly on his throne;" and (due allowance being made for the nature of the proceedings) it might safely be averred, that no entertainment ever given in the neighbourhood had caused more sensation, or been prepared for with a more lavish expenditure. The whole of the 9th, 10th, and 11th days of the month were entirely employed by the majority of the Cartwright household in receiving and arranging the different works of fancy contributed by the neighbouring ladies for the sale. By far the greater half of these articles were pincushions, and for the most part they packed and unpacked well and safely; but amidst the vast variety of forms into which this favourite vehicle of charity was turned, some among them were equally ingenious in design, delicate in execution, and difficult of carriage. There were harps, of which the strings were actually musical, and the foot a pincushion. Old women of pasteboard, washing their feet in a pasteboard tub, but with knees stuffed for pincushions. Pasteboard hunch-backs, the hunches being pincushions. Babies dressed with the nicest taste and care, their plump little necks and shoulders forming pincushions. Pretty silken volumes, lettered "pointed satires," and their yellow edges stuffed for pincushions. Ladies very fashionably dressed, with the crowns of their bonnets, and their graceful backs, prepared as pincushions. These, and ten thousand more, of which a prolonged description might probably prove tedious, formed the staple commodity of the elegant booths, which stretched themselves in two long rows from one extremity of the beautiful lawn to the other. Tracts, so numerous that it would be impossible to give their measure or their value by any other calculation than that of their weight, were made by the ingenuity of the fair and pious contributors to assume a very tempting aspect, bound by their own delicate hands in silks and velvets of every hue to be found between earth and heaven, green and blue inclusive.