Blessings upon a fashion which has rescued from the claws of abigails, and the melting-pot of the silversmith, those neglected _cimelia_, for the benefit of antiquaries and the decoration of side-tables! But who shall presume to place them there, unless under the direction of female taste?
and of that Mr.Mowbray, though possessed of a large stock of such treasures, was for the present entirely deprived.
This digression upon his difficulties is already too long, or I might mention the Laird's inexperience in the art of making the worse appear the better garnishment, of hiding a darned carpet with a new floor-cloth, and flinging an Indian shawl over a faded and threadbare sofa.

But I have said enough, and more than enough, to explain his dilemma to an unassisted bachelor, who, without mother, sister, or cousin, without skilful housekeeper, or experienced clerk of the kitchen, or valet of parts and figure, adventures to give an entertainment, and aspires to make it elegant and _comme il faut_.
The sense of his insufficiency was the more vexatious to Mowbray, as he was aware he would find sharp critics in the ladies, and particularly in his constant rival, Lady Penelope Penfeather.

He was, therefore, incessant in his exertions; and for two whole days ordered and disordered, demanded, commanded, countermanded, and reprimanded, without pause or cessation.

The companion, for he could not be termed an assistant, of his labours, was his trusty agent, who trotted from room to room after him, affording him exactly the same degree of sympathy which a dog doth to his master when distressed in mind, by looking in his face from time to time with a piteous gaze, as if to assure him that he partakes of his trouble, though he neither comprehends the cause or the extent of it, nor has in the slightest degree the power to remove it.
At length when Mowbray had got some matters arranged to his mind, and abandoned a great many which he would willingly have put in better order, he sat down to dinner upon the Wednesday preceding the appointed day, with his worthy aide-de-camp, Mr.Meiklewham; and after bestowing a few muttered curses upon the whole concern, and the fantastic old maid who had brought him into the scrape, by begging an invitation, declared that all things might now go to the devil their own way, for so sure as his name was John Mowbray, he would trouble himself no more about them.
Keeping this doughty resolution, he sat down to dinner with his counsel learned in the law; and speedily they dispatched the dish of chops which was set before them, and the better part of the bottle of old port, which served for its menstruum.
"We are well enough now," said Mowbray, "though we have had none of their d----d kickshaws." "A wamefou' is a wamefou'," said the writer, swabbing his greasy chops, "whether it be of the barleymeal or the bran." "A cart-horse thinks so," said Mowbray; "but we must do as others do, and gentlemen and ladies are of a different opinion." "The waur for themselves and the country baith, St.Ronan's--it's the jinketing and the jirbling wi' tea and wi' trumpery that brings our nobles to nine-pence, and mony a het ha'-house to a hired lodging in the Abbey." The young gentleman paused for a few minutes--filled a bumper, and pushed the bottle to the senior--then said abruptly, "Do you believe in luck, Mick ?" "In luck ?" answered the attorney; "what do you mean by the question ?" "Why, because I believe in luck myself--in a good or bad run of luck at cards." "You wad have mair luck the day, if you had never touched them," replied his confident.
"That is not the question now," said Mowbray; "but what I wonder at is the wretched chance that has attended us miserable Lairds of St.Ronan's for more than a hundred years, that we have always been getting worse in the world, and never better.

Never has there been such a backsliding generation, as the parson would say--half the country once belonged to my ancestors, and now the last furrows of it seem to be flying." "Fleeing!" said the writer, "they are barking and fleeing baith .-- This Shaws-Castle here, I'se warrant it flee up the chimney after the rest, were it not weel fastened down with your grandfather's tailzie." "Damn the tailzie!" said Mowbray; "if they had meant to keep up their estate, they should have entailed it when it was worth keeping: to tie a man down to such an insignificant thing as St.Ronan's, is like tethering a horse on six roods of a Highland moor." "Ye have broke weel in on the mailing by your feus down at the Well," said Meiklewham, "and raxed ower the tether maybe a wee bit farther than ye had ony right to do." "It was by your advice, was it not ?" said the Laird.
"I'se ne'er deny it, St.Ronan's," answered the writer; "but I am such a gude-natured guse, that I just set about pleasing you as an auld wife pleases a bairn." "Ay," said the man of pleasure, "when she reaches it a knife to cut its own fingers with .-- These acres would have been safe enough, if it had not been for your d----d advice." "And yet you were grumbling e'en now," said the man of business, "that you have not the power to gar the whole estate flee like a wild-duck across a bog?
Troth, you need care little about it; for if you have incurred an irritancy--and sae thinks Mr.Wisebehind, the advocate, upon an A.B.memorial that I laid before him--your sister, or your sister's goodman, if she should take the fancy to marry, might bring a declarator, and evict St.Ronan's frae ye in the course of twa or three sessions." "My sister will never marry," said John Mowbray.
"That's easily said," replied the writer; "but as broken a ship's come to land.