“There was a large fluctuating series of guests for the hour or guests for the day, of almost all ranks and descriptions, from the earl and his countess to the farmer and his dame. The house had room for all, and the hearts of the owners would have had room for three times the number. I never saw hospitality more genuine, more simple, or more thoroughly successful in the great end of hospitality--the putting everybody completely at ease. There was not the slightest attempt at finery, or display, or gentility. They called it a farmhouse, and everything was in accordance with the largest idea of a great English yeoman of the old time. Everything was excellent, everything abundant, all served with the greatest nicety by trim waiting-damsels; and everything went on with such quiet regularity that of the large circle of guests not one could find himself in the way. I need not say a word more in praise of the good wife, … to whom this admirable order was mainly due. She was a sweet motherly woman.… “At this time William Cobbett was at the height of his political reputation; but of politics we heard little, and should, I think, have heard nothing, but for an occasional red-hot patriot, who would introduce the subject, which our host would fain put aside, and got rid of as speedily as possible. There was something of _Dandie Dinmont_ about him, with his unfailing good-humour and good spirits, his heartiness, his love of field sports, and his liking for a foray. He was a tall, stout man, fair and sunburnt, with a bright smile, and an air compounded of the soldier and the farmer, to which his habit of wearing an eternal red waistcoat contributed not a little.… “Few persons excelled him in the management of vegetables, fruit, and flowers. His green Indian corn, his Carolina beans, his water-melons, could hardly have been exceeded at New York. His wall-fruit was equally splendid; and, much as flowers have been studied since that day, I never saw a more glowing or a more fragrant autumn garden than that at Botley, with its pyramids of hollyhocks, and its masses of china-asters, of cloves, of mignonette, and of variegated geranium. The chances of life soon parted us, as, without grave faults on either side, people do lose sight of one another; but I shall always look back with pleasure and regret to that visit.” [8] Afterwards 3rd Earl Radnor. He died in 1869, at a very advanced age, after a life of real usefulness. Had there been more such men as he, the domestic history of England, in our century, would be a different tale. CHAPTER XV. “I DID DESTROY THEIR POWER TO ROB US, ANY LONGER, WITHOUT THE ROBBERY BEING PERCEIVED.”