WRECKED IN PORT.

A SERIAL STORY BY THE AUTHOR OF "BLACK SHEEP."
                              ________________

                                     BOOK II.

CHAPTER X. THE GIRLS THEY LEFT BEHIND
                                  THEM.

IT is a conventional, but by no means a
correct, notion, that at the time of a social
separation those who are left behind have
so very much the worst of it. People imagine
that those who remain must necessarily
be so dull after the departure of their
friends; though very frequently those departing
are the very persons who have imported
gloom and misery into the household, who
have sat like social old men and women of
the sea on the necks of the jovial Sindbads,
who have been skeletons at the feast, and
wet blankets, and bottle-stoppers, and kill-
joys, and mirth-quenchers, and story-
baulkers. It is by no means an uncommon
occurrence, that there has been no such
pleasant music for weeks, in the ears of
those remaining in the house, as the noise
of the wheels of the carriage speeding the
parting guest.

The people of Helmingham village, when
they saw the carriage containing Mr. Creswell
and his bride spinning away to the
station, after indulging in a fresh theme of
talk expressive of their surprise at all that
had happened, and their delight at the
cleverness of the schoolmaster's daughter,
who had, as they politely expressed it,
"carried her pigs to such a good market,"
began to discuss the situation at
Woolgreaves; and as it had been universally
agreed that the day should be made a general
holiday, the new married folk and their
kith and kin, their past and future, were
served up as topics of conversation, not
merely at the various village tea-tables, but
in the commercial room of the Lion at
Brocksopp, which, there being no
commercial gentlemen staying in the house,
had been given up to the tenantry on the
estate, who were given to understand that
Mr. Teesdale, Mr. Creswell's agent, would
attend to the bill. It was long since the
Lion had done such a roaring trade, for the
commercial gents, by whom the house was
chiefly frequented, though convivial souls,
were apt to be convivial on small orders,
"fours" of rum and "sixes" of brandy; and
it was only on exceptional occasions that
old Mr. Mulock, who "travelled in hardware,"
would suffer himself to be fined a
crown bowl of punch for having committed
the uncommercial atrocity of smoking in
the commercial room before seven o'clock,
or young Mr. Cunynghame, who represented
his own firm in Scotch goods—a very
pushing young gentleman, and a wonderful
fellow to get on—would "stand champagne
round" when he had received a specially
remunerative order. But now Miss
Parkhurst, in the bar, had not a second to
herself, the demand for her strong mahogany-
coloured brandy-and-water was so great;
steaming jorums of "hot with" here, huge
goblets of "cold without" there; the
fascinating Hebe of the Lion had not
dispensed so much drink at one time since the
day when old Major Barth was returned in
the Conservative interest for Brocksopp—
and the major, it is allowed, was not merely
a hard drinker himself, but the cause of
hard drinking in others; while as for old
Tilley, the jolly landlord, he was so
overwhelmed with the exertion of punch-
compounding, that he took off the short-tailed
snuff-coloured coat which he usually wore,
and went to work in his shirt-sleeves, slicing
lemons, mixing, strengthening, sweetening,
—ay, and tasting too—until his pleasant