CHAPTER VII.
DURNMELLING.
In the autumn, Mr.Mortimer of Durnmelling resolved to give a harvest-home to his tenants, and under the protection of the occasion to invite also a good many of his neighbors and of the townsfolk of Testbridge, whom he could not well ask to dinner: there happened to be a political expediency for something of the sort: America is not the only country in which ambition opens the door to mean doings on the part of such as count themselves gentlemen.

Not a few on whom Lady Margaret had never called, and whom she would never in any way acknowledge again, were invited; nor did the knowledge of what it meant cause many of them to decline the questionable honor--which fact carried in it the best justification of which the meanness and insult were capable.

Mrs.Wardour accepted for herself and Letty; but in their case Lady Margaret did call, and in person give the invitation.

Godfrey positively refused to accompany them.

He would not be patronized, he said; "-- and by an inferior," he added to himself.
Mr.Mortimer was the illiterate son of a literary father who had reaped both money and fame.