CHAPTER VII.
THE SQUIRE.
The dinners at Glanyravon were always unexceptionable.

Mr Gwynne was a bit of an epicure, and kept a capital cook, and his daughter liked to see everything done in good style.

Even Mrs.Jonathan Prothero declared that the dinner-parties at her cousin's, Sir Philip Payne Perry's, were scarcely more agreeable or better managed.
Still, at the dinner in question, all the elements were not quite well amalgamated.

Although the dishes were so discreetly seasoned, and the _entremets_ so exquisitely prepared, that the most fastidious critic of the gastronomic art would not have found a grain too much of any one ingredient, there was a less judicious mixture amongst the guests.
Nothing could be more perfect than the bearing of the host and hostess.
Mr Gywnne was a gentleman, even in his peculiarities--fastidiously a gentleman--and comported himself as such to every one.

But he was too nervous, and had too low a voice to put his guests at ease: one half did not hear him at all, and the rest were slightly afraid of him on account of this extreme fastidiousness, his nervous complaints and his being very easily tired, or bored.