Our country seats became bustling and animated after the Birthday; many even of the more important families resided, indeed, all the year round on their estates.

The Continent was closed to us; the fastidious exclusiveness which comes from habitual residence in cities had not made that demarcation, in castes and in talk, between neighbour and neighbour, which exists now.

Our squires were less educated, less refined, but more hospitable and unassuming.
In a word, there was what does not exist now, except in some districts remote from London,--a rural society for those who sought it.
The party, as we enter, is grouped somewhat thus.

But first we must cast a glance at the room itself, which rarely failed to be the first object to attract a stranger's notice.

It was a long, and not particularly well-proportioned apartment,--according, at least, to modern notions,--for it had rather the appearance of two rooms thrown into one.
At the distance of about thirty-five feet, the walls, before somewhat narrow, were met by an arch, supported by carved pilasters, which opened into a space nearly double the width of the previous part of the room, with a domed ceiling and an embayed window of such depth that the recess almost formed a chamber in itself.