Impressions of splendor depend very much upon contrast, so that Wenderholme seemed very astonishing to a person coming directly from Milend. But such impressions are soon obliterated by habit, and in a week Mrs. Ogden will have lost the "fresh eye," to which she owes her present sense of enchantment. How long would it take to get accustomed to Blenheim, or Castle Howard, or Compiègne? Would it take a fortnight? However, Mrs. Ogden had the advantage of a far fresher eye than _nous autres_, who are so accustomed to gilding and glitter in public _cafés_ and picture-galleries, that we are all, as it were, princes, insensible to impressions of splendor. All that Mrs. Ogden said upon that memorable day it would be tedious to relate. She thought aloud, and the burden of her thoughts, their ever-recurring refrain, was her sense of the grandeur that surrounded her. Jacob Ogden had bought a good deal of Colonel Stanburne's fine old silver plate, and this formed the main subject of Mrs. Ogden's conversation during dinner. "I think our Jacob's gone fair mad with pride," she said to all the company, and in the hearing of the attentive servants, "for we'd plenty of silver at Milend--quite plenty for any one; we've all my uncle Adam's silver spoons, and my aunt Alice's, and plenty of silver candlesticks, and a tea-service--and I cannot tell what our Jacob would be at." Then she added, with serene complacency, "However, it's all paid for." She had not the art of avoiding a topic likely to be disagreeable either to herself or anybody else, but would make other folks uncomfortable, and torture her own mind by dwelling upon their sores and her own. I don't think that in this she was altogether wrong, or that the most delicate people are altogether right in doing exactly the contrary, for it is as well to grasp nettles with a certain hardihood; but she carried a respectable sort of courage to a very unnecessary excess. Thus, when she had done about the silver and the general extravagance of "our Jacob," the next topic she found to talk about was the absence of Mr. and Mrs. Prigley. She launched forth into a catalogue of all the benefits wherewith she had overwhelmed Mrs. Prigley in the days of her poverty at Shayton, and represented that lady as a monster of ingratitude. "Why, they were so poor," Mrs. Ogden said, "that they couldn't even afford carpets to their floors; but now that they're better off in the world, they turn their backs on those that helped them. We were always helping them, and making them presents." Every one saw that the Ogdens were dreadfully sore about the absence of the vicar and his wife, and it was not very good policy on Mrs. Ogden's part to draw attention to it in that way; for a parson, though ornamental, is not absolutely indispensable to a good dinner, and they might have got on very well without one.