linen, _or so_, and a few immediate necessaries for himself and his son. “Then, I suppose,” said he, “Waldron may expect the main body of his baggage by the broad-wheeled waggon.” Partings and meetings between relatives are seldom of any interest except to those immediately concerned in them: we shall not, therefore, indulge in a description of what took place at the departure of Archibald and his son from Mrs. and the six Misses Hackle, nor of what Reginald said to Archibald, or Archibald said to Reginald, during the first ten minutes of their interview at Hackle Hall. We rather prefer relating the conversation of the three brothers after they had made a tolerable lunch on a cold pigeon-pie and two quarts of very respectable ale. “Well, brother Archibald,” said the reverend gentleman as soon as the tray was removed, “and, pray, what aspect does your native place wear to your eye, since your long absence from it?--But you were so young when you quitted it, for a dismal, smoky, London-merchant's 'counting-house, that I suppose all recollection of it must have escaped your memory.” “That's the positive truth,” replied Archibald; “if I had remembered the place and its people; if the least remnant of a sample had cleaved to me, not even the pleasure of seeing you and Waldron, would have induced me to have quitted the metropolis to pay it a visit.” “You amaze me!” exclaimed Reginald; “the hospitality--” “Oh! I've had enough of hospitality, believe me; and so had Gulliver, in the arms of the Brobdignag monkey, who ran away with him, and poked pounds of nauseous chewed food out of its own jaws into his; people are sometimes offensively, cruelly hospitable. Here, now, for instance, was I taken yesterday, by my brother, for a treat--mark me--to dine with one Jehoshaphat Higgs--” “Almost the sole remaining specimen,” interrupted Sir Waldron, “of the fine, old-English, West-country yeomen;--a race, alas! now nearly extinct I honour the man: he farms his own land; sends his sons to the plough; his daughters to the spinning-wheel, and his wife to the chum. He keeps up all the good old customs of the country; raises the mistletoe on his beam at Christmas, and dances round the May-pole, with his buxom dame, at seventy, as gay at heart, though not as light of limb, as he did at twenty: I repeat, that I honour such men.” “Honour them as much as you please, Waldron,” replied Archibald; “honour them, and welcome; but, I beseech you, do not entrap me to honour another of them,--if, indeed, there be such another blade as old Jehoshaphat, hereabouts,--with any more visits. First, brother Reginald, conceive the misery, if you can, of dining in a room, falsely designated a parlour, with a sanded floor! My teeth were set on edge every time I moved a foot.” “Ay, but, brother, provided the table be well covered,” observed Reginald, “one might, methinks, even put up with a clean, dry, sanded floor.”