"Oh, does he? Then it is fortunate nobody ever does help anybody to salt. Well, yours is a nice creed. Why, we are all at the mercy of other people, according to you. Say I have a rival: she smiles in my face, and says, 'My sweet friend, accept this tribute of my esteem;' and gives me a pinch of salt, before I know where I am. I wither on the spot; and she sails off with the prize. Or, if there is no salt about, she comes behind me with a pin, and pins it to my skirt, and that pierces my heart. Don't you see what abominable nonsense it all is?"
The argument was cut short by the ringing of a tremendous bell.
Grace gave the last, swift, searching, all-comprehensive look of her sex into the glass, and went down to the drawing-room. There she found Mr. Raby and Mr. Coventry, who both greeted her cordially; and the next moment dinner was announced.
"Raby Hall" was a square house, with two large low wings. The left wing contained the kitchen, pantry, scullery, bakehouse, brew-house, etc.; and servants' bedrooms above. The right wing the stables, coach-houses, cattle-sheds, and several bedrooms. The main building of the hall, the best bedrooms, and the double staircase, leading up to them in horse-shoe form from the hall: and, behind the hall, on the ground-floor, there was a morning-room, in which several of the Squire's small tenants were even now preparing for supper by drinking tea, and eating cakes made in rude imitation of the infant Saviour. On the right of the hall were the two drawing-rooms en suite, and on the left was the remarkable room into which the host now handed Miss Carden, and Mr. Coventry followed. This room had been, originally, the banqueting-hall. It was about twenty feet high, twenty-eight feet wide, and fifty feet long, and ended in an enormous bay window, that opened upon the lawn. It was entirely paneled with oak, carved by old Flemish workmen, and adorned here and there with bold devices. The oak, having grown old in a pure atmosphere, and in a district where wood and roots were generally burned in dining-rooms, had acquired a very rich and beautiful color, a pure and healthy reddish brown, with no tinge whatever of black; a mighty different hue from any you can find in Wardour Street. Plaster ceiling there was none, and never had been. The original joists, and beams, and boards, were still there, only not quite so rudely fashioned as of old; for Mr. Raby's grandfather had caused them to be planed and varnished, and gilded a little in serpentine lines. This woodwork above gave nobility to the room, and its gilding, though worn, relieved the eye agreeably.
The further end was used as a study, and one side of it graced with books, all handsomely bound: the other side, with a very beautiful organ that had an oval mirror in the midst of its gilt dummy-pipes.
All this made a cozy nook in the grand room.
What might be called the dining-room part, though rich, was rather somber on ordinary occasions; but this night it was decorated gloriously. The materials were simple--wax-candles and holly; the effect was produced by a magnificent use of these materials. There were eighty candles, of the largest size sold in shops, and twelve wax pillars, five feet high, and the size of a man's calf; of these, four only were lighted at present. The holly was not in sprigs, but in enormous branches, that filled the eye with glistening green and red: and, in the embrasure of the front window stood a young holly-tree entire, eighteen feet high, and gorgeous with five hundred branches of red berries. The tree had been dug up, and planted here in an enormous bucket, used for that purpose, and filled with mold.
Close behind this tree were placed two of the wax pillars, lighted, and their flame shone through the leaves and berries magically.
As Miss Carden entered, on Mr. Raby's arm, her eye swept the room with complacency, and settled on the holly-tree. At sight of that she pinched Mr. Raby's arm, and cried "Oh!" three times. Then, ignoring the dinner-table altogether, she pulled her host away to the tree, and stood before it, with clasped hands. "Oh, how beautiful!"
Mr. Raby was gratified. "So then our forefathers were not quite such fools as some people say."
"They were angels, they were ducks. It is beautiful, it is divine."
Mr. Raby looked at the glowing cheek, and deep, sparkling, sapphire eye. "Come," said he; "after all, there's nothing here so beautiful as the young lady who now honors the place with her presence."
With this he handed her ceremoniously to a place at his right hand; said a short grace, and sat down between his two guests.
"But, Mr. Raby," said Grace, ruefully, "I'm with my back to the holly-tree."
"You can ask Coventry to change places."
Mr. Coventry rose, and the change was effected.
"Well, it is your doing, Coventry. Now she'll overlook YOU."
"All the better for me, perhaps. I'm content: Miss Carden will look at the holly, and I shall look at Miss Carden."
"Faute de mieux."
"C'est mechant."
"And I shall fine you both a bumper of champagne, for going out of the English language."
"I shall take my punishment like a man."
"Then take mine as well. Champagne with me means frenzy."
But, in the midst of the easy banter and jocose airy nothings of the modern dining-room, an object attracted Grace's eye. It was a picture, with its face turned to the wall, and some large letters on the back of the canvas.
This excited Grace's curiosity directly, and, whenever she could, without being observed, she peeped, and tried to read the inscription; but, what with Mr. Raby's head, and a monster candle that stood before it, she could not decipher it unobserved. She was inclined to ask Mr. Raby; but she was very quick, and, observing that the other portraits were of his family, she suspected at once that the original of this picture had offended her host, and that it would be in bad taste, and might be offensive, to question him.
Still the subject took possession of her.
At about eight o'clock a servant announced candles in the drawing-room.