Mrs Cruden, cooped up in a corner with her loquacious hostess, did her best too not to be a damper on the general festivity.

But Reginald made no effort to be other than he felt himself.

He could not have done it if he had tried.

But as scarcely any one seemed afflicted on his account, even his unsociability failed to make Samuel Shuckleford's majority party anything but a brilliant success.
In due time supper appeared to crown the evening's delights.

And after supper a gentleman got up and proposed a toast, which of course was the health of the hero of the occasion.
Samuel replied in a facetious County Court address, in which he expressed himself "jolly pleased to see so many friends around him, and hoping they'd all enjoyed their evening, and that if there were any of them still to come of age--( laughter)--they'd have as high an old time of it as he had had to-night.