When I speak of wealth, I do not mean that the dean's household would have been considered by his own class at all too luxurious. He would have been said, I suppose, to live in a "quiet, comfortable, gentlemanlike way"--"everything very plain and very good." It included a butler--a quiet, good-natured old man--who ushered us into our bedrooms; a footman, who opened the door--a sort of animal for which I have an extreme aversion--young, silly, conceited, over-fed, florid--who looked just the man to sell his soul for a livery, twice as much food as he needed, and the opportunity of unlimited flirtations with the maids; and a coachman, very like other coachmen, whom I saw taking a pair of handsome carriage-horses out to exercise, as we opened the gate. The old man, silently and as a matter of course, unpacked for me my little portmanteau (lent me by my cousin), and placed my things neatly in various drawers--went down, brought up a jug of hot water, put it on the washing-table--told me that dinner was at six--that the half-hour bell rang at half-past five--and that, if I wanted anything, the footman would answer the bell (bells seeming a prominent idea in his theory of the universe)--and so left me, wondering at the strange fact that free men, with free wills, do sell themselves, by the hundred thousand, to perform menial offices for other men, not for love, but for money; becoming, to define them strictly, bell-answering animals; and are honest, happy, contented, in such a life. A man-servant, a soldier, and a Jesuit, are to me the three great wonders of humanity--three forms of moral suicide, for which I never had the slightest gleam of sympathy, or even comprehension. * * * * * At last we went down to dinner, after my personal adornments had been carefully superintended by my cousin, who gave me, over and above, various warnings and exhortations as to my behaviour; which, of course, took due effect, in making me as nervous, constrained, and affected, as possible. When I appeared in the drawing-room, I was kindly welcomed by the dean, the two ladies, and Lord Lynedale. But, as I stood fidgeting and blushing, sticking my arms and legs, and head into all sorts of quaint positions--trying one attitude, and thinking it looked awkward, and so exchanged it for another, more awkward still--my eye fell suddenly on a slip of paper, which had conveyed itself, I never knew how, upon the pages of the Illustrated Book of Ballads, which I was turning over:-- "Be natural, and you will be gentlemanlike. If you wish others to forget your rank, do not forget it yourself. If you wish others to remember you with pleasure, forget yourself; and be just what God has made you."