HALF A MILLION OF MONEY.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "BARBARA'S HISTORY."

CHAPTER XXIX. THE RICH MISS HATHERTON.

AN evening party at Castletowers was a
momentous affair. It involved a good deal of
expense, and a vast amount of anxiety; for the
hereditary coffers were ever but scantily
furnished, and the hereditary hospitality had to be
kept up at any cost. How some of Lady
Castletowers' few but elegant entertainments were
paid for, was a secret known only to her son and
herself. Sometimes an oak or two was felled in
some remote corner of the park; or the Earl
denied himself a horse; or the carriage was left
unrenovated for half a year longer; or her
ladyship magnanimously sacrificed her own brief
visit to London in the season. Anyhow, these
extra expenses were certain to be honourably
met, in such a manner that only the givers of
the feast were inconvenienced by it.

On the present occasion, however, Lord
Castletowers had been compelled to apply to his
solicitor for an advance upon his next half-yearly
receipts; and when William Trefalden went
down that Thursday morning to see his cousin
Saxon, he brought with him a cheque for the
Earl. The party was fixed for the following
evening; but Mr. Trefalden could not be
prevailed upon to stay for it. He was obliged, he
said, to go back to town that same night by the
last train; and he did go back (after making
himself very pleasant at dinner), with Saxon's
signature in his pocket-book.

It was a very brilliant party, consisting of the
most part of county magnates, with a sprinkling
of military, and a valuable reinforcement of
dancing men from town. Among the magnates
were Viscount and Lady Esher, a stately couple
of the old school, who, being much too dignified
to travel by railway, drove over with four horses
from Esher Court, a distance of eighteen miles,
and remained at Castletowers for the night.
The Viscount was lord-lieutenant and Custos
Rotulorum of the county, and had once held
office for three weeks as President of the Board
of Perquisites; a fact to which he was never
weary of alluding. There, too, were Sir
Alexander and Lady Hankley, with their five marriageable
daughters; the Bishop of Betchworth and
Mrs. Bunyon; Mr. Walkingshaw of Aylsham,
one of the richest commoners in England, with
Lady Arabella Walkingshaw, his wife, and their
distinguished guest, Miss Hatherton of
Penzance, whose father had begun life as a common
miner, and ended it with a fortune of two hundred
and fifty thousand pounds. These, together
with Lord Boxhill; His Responsibility
Prince Quartz Potz, the Prussian Envoy; a few
local baronets and their families; an ex-secretary
of legation; and a number of lesser stars,
parliamentary, clerical, and official, made up the
bulk of the assembly. There were also three or
four celebrities from the lower paradise of arts
and letters—Sir Jones de Robinson, the eminent
portrait-painter; Signor Katghuttini, the great
Dalmatian violinist; Mr. Smythe Browne, the
profound author of "Transcendental
Eclecticism," and Mrs. Smythe Browne, who wrote
that admirable work on " Woman in the Camp,
the Council, and the Church"—a very remarkable
couple, whose distinguishing characteristics
were, that Mrs. Smythe Browne wore short hair
and shirt collars, while the sandy locks of Mr.
Smythe Browne floated upon his shoulders, and
he displayed no vestige of linen whatsoever.

By nine o'clock the guests began to arrive.
By ten, the reception-rooms were well filled, and
dancing commenced in the great hall. Though
rarely thrown open to the light of day, the great
hall, with its panellings of dark oak, its carved
chimney-piece, its Gothic rafters, and its stands
of rusty armour, some of which dated back to
the field of Agincourt, was the glory of Castletowers.
Brilliantly lighted, decorated with
evergreens and flowers, and echoing to the
music of a military band, it made such a ballroom
as one might vainly seek in any country
but our own.

Lady Castletowers received her guests near
the door of the first reception-room, looking
very stately, and more like Marie Antoinette
than ever, in her glitter of old family diamonds.
Gracious to all, as a hostess should be, she
nevertheless apportioned her civilities according to a
complex code of etiquette. The smile with which
she greeted Viscount Esher differed by many
degrees from that with which she received Sir
Jones de Robinson; and the hand extended to
Mrs. Smythe Browne was as the hand of an
automaton compared with that which met, with
a pressure slight yet cordial, the palm of the
rich Miss Hatherton.

"But where is the noble savage?" said this
latter, surveying the room through her double