It is only right to observe that the Rev. had exchanged his hunting costume for a suit of more clerical attire, yet, somehow, had failed to put off with his leathers an atom of his equestrian air. Even in the fullest canonicals, you never could have taken Mr. Dove for anything but a sportsman.
Why are people always so much pleasanter at luncheon than at dinner? Notwithstanding John Bull’s predilection for the latter meal, as a mode of testifying his regard, his civility, and his own respectability, I cannot help thinking that foreigners are right to ignore that heavy system of dinner-giving which we islanders regard as the very framework of our social system. There is always more or less of pomposity, and consequent restraint, attendant upon a regular set dinner in the country. A few thorough people of the world, “worldly,” know how to ask exactly the right three couple or so, and put them down to a hot dinner at a round table, such as is the very acme of all festive boards; but this is a rare quality in host and hostess. Usually, you are placed next to a guest you don’t know, and opposite to one you don’t like. Your soup is cold, your venison underdone; and the eyes of three or four servants intently watching every mouthful you swallow is destruction to a delicate appetite. In some old-fashioned houses, you may even recognise the burly coachman assisting his fellow-domestics to wait upon the company; and although, for my own part, I confess to a liking for “the smell of the stables,” I cannot but admit that the flavour is somewhat spoilt by being mixed with that of a “_salmi de gibier_,” or a sweetbread plastered round with spinach.
But luncheon, on the contrary, is a light, exhilarating, free-and-easy meal. Even Mr. Sawyer, as he finished his leg of pheasant and glass of brown sherry, felt wonderfully restored by his repast. “Cissy” was a good “doer” (ladies generally are, about two o’clock), and, till she had disposed of her meal, gave her neighbour a little breathing-time, and leisure to look about him.
I have often thought, although I am by no means the first person who has made the observation, both in and out of print, how true it is that it may be a huge disadvantage to a girl to be seen in company with her mother. It is sometimes discouraging enough to reflect that the coveted treasure must eventually expand into a facsimile of the dragon on guard. Fancy, if the fruit in the Gardens of the Hesperides had been eggs instead of apples, each golden shell enclosing the germ of just such a monster as was grinning at the gate! To be sure, the resemblance may cut the other way as well. I _have_ seen mammas whom the fairest of Eve’s daughters might be proud to resemble; but it is sometimes hard upon the young Phœbe to have perpetually at her side the shapeless Mother Bunch, into the facsimile of which she must eventually grow. Mr. Sawyer, gazing intently on his hostess discussing her cutlet and glass of port-wine with considerable relish, _acknowledged_, though he would not _accept_, the warning.