The residence of Sir Andrew Featherstone was called Hovenden Lodge; why it was called a lodge we cannot say. It was a large plain house, situated in a small level park. The hand of improvement had been very busy with it, but the genius of propriety had not presided over the improvements. Several different styles of architecture had been introduced, and to very ill effect; for the very square broad-sided form of the building rendered it unsusceptible of decoration. But Sir Andrew cared nothing about it—he left all those matters to the ladies, who gave directions according to their own taste or lack of taste; and all the return which he made for their architectural diligence and their skilful improvements was to laugh at what he called their absurdities. The usual order was quite reversed at Hovenden Lodge; for while Lady Featherstone and her two daughters, Lucy and Isabella, were drawing plans, or marching about the park, and pointing out to the architect the improvements which they thought desirable, Sir Andrew was standing by the kitchen fire and lecturing the cook, or translating aloud recipes from his favorite French cookery-book, which was the only book that he had ever purchased; and very highly did he value it, fancying that few persons in this kingdom were aware of its existence. He often however had, or we should more properly say, might have had, the mortification of finding that he had been translating from French into English that which had been previously translated from English into French; for whenever his knowing lady reminded him that any recipe was already in the English cookery-books, he would always contend for or discover some delicate variation which gave the French the advantage. He thought, too, that there was a peculiar piquancy in the French terms, and that there was a particular relish in foreign names, which he always took care to utter, but which his obstinately English organs of speech rendered mightily amusing in their utterance.

The greatest evil of the archery-meeting in Sir Andrew’s opinion was, that it must be attended only with a cold collation, and that must be in a marquee. It had been discussed repeatedly, but as frequently decided against him, that it was absolutely impossible to have a hot dinner. He did not like it, but he bore it very good-temperedly; and was brimful of jokes, ready to let fly with every arrow.

Lady Featherstone, who was never so happy as when she was patronising, was delighted with the thought of the long table under the marquee, and her own self smiling, nodding, and bowing most gracefully to every body: she could undergo a cold dinner every day of her life, for the happiness of thinking that every body said, “What a charming woman is Lady Featherstone!”

The young ladies were in proud and confident expectation of winning the prize; but in still more proud and more confident expectation of exhibiting their elegant selves to an admiring multitude. This, indeed, is the great beauty of archery; it is an elegant exercise, or in other words, it gives an opportunity to young ladies to exhibit themselves in elegant or attractive attitudes; and many a young woman who would have scarcely any chance of a display, hereby acquires a right to be stared at most perseveringly and inveterately. She may be as long as she pleases taking her aim; and if she fears that she shall not hit the target, she may take an aim elsewhere.

And it is a very pretty thing too for young gentlemen in the last year of being at school, or in the first of their undergraduateship. Dressed in the archery uniform, they look so very much like Robin Hood: they go back to old times in almost more than imagination; but more especially, they have an opportunity of playing off the polites. At all events, it is a very innocent amusement; and if properly managed by the lady-patroness, it may rise into something of a matter of importance. If any of the party be in possession of the powers of eloquence, they may draw up a very pretty report of the meeting; and the editors of country papers will feel much honored by inserting the said report; and there will be a very pretty sprinkling of very pretty compliments to the very pretty young ladies, who may be compared to Diana’s nymphs; and there may be quotations from the old songs about Robin Hood and Maid Marian; and very pretty talk about the greenwood shade and the merry horn. Then the editor of the newspaper sells an extra number of papers, which are sent in different directions to distant friends.

The display of beauty and fashion which was exhibited in Hovenden Park on the above-named occasion, bids defiance by its brilliancy to our powers of description. Sir Andrew himself, though his occupation was gone for that day at least, endured with a very good grace his absence from the kitchen; and was prepared to hear and say all that was polite, together with a little that was satirical. Before the business of the day began, he said in the hearing of the exhibitors: “Where shall I stand to be most out of the way; I think I had better take my station in front of the target.”

With many such sayings he entertained the young people; and some of the young ladies laughed so heartily at his attempts at humor, that they could hardly direct the arrows; and then, when any one shot very wide of the mark, he smilingly said, “Well done, my good girl, that’s right, take care you don’t spoil the target.” And notwithstanding all the frowns and rebukes of Lady Featherstone, the facetious baronet continued his interruptions much to the amusement and a little to the annoyance of the party.

We should not have mentioned this crotchet of Sir Andrew’s, but that we think it may be not amiss to take this opportunity of observing that persevering witticisms, forced out in rapid succession on all occasions, and a series of smart sayings, good, bad, and indifferent, uttered without abatement, may often excite the outward and visible sign of merriment long after they have ceased to be agreeable. For laughter is not always the sign of satisfaction, any more than tears are always a token of sorrow. There is no man, however stupid, who cannot occasionally say a good thing; and very few, if any, can utter real wit in every sentence; and miserable is the annoyance of everlasting efforts at facetiousness. It is only tolerable in those who are very young or very weak.

But as one great object of archery-meetings is display, we should be guilty of injustice in omitting to notice a young lady of the party, who came with the full intention of eclipsing every one there;—and she succeeded. We refer to Miss Celestina Sampson. She came accompanied by her father, Sir Gilbert Sampson; who, though a new man, was very well received by Sir Andrew. Miss Sampson was not a beauty, but was good-looking and rather pretty; of middle stature, light complexion, and fine natural colour; good-humored and cheerful; ambitious of elegance, but not well-informed as to the means; critical as to the externals of behaviour, and much exposed herself to the same kind of criticism; sadly afraid of vulgarity, though often sinning through mere ignorance. Her appearance and dress attracted, as she designed, universal attention; but not, as she hoped, universal admiration. She had studied costume with more zeal than taste; and vibrating between the costume of Diana and Maid Marian, she at last appeared, if like any thing at all, a tawdry imitation of Fatima, in the play of Blue-beard.

As Sir Gilbert Sampson was also present, we may say a word or two of him. He had been a soap-boiler. True; but what of that?—he had retired from business, and had washed his hands of soap. He had been a soap-boiler. True; but whose fault was that? Not his own: he had no innate, natural, violent, irresistible, unextinguishable propensity for boiling soap; for if he had, he would never have relinquished the pursuit. The fault was his father’s; for had the father of Sir Gilbert been a duke, Sir Gilbert would never have been a soap-boiler. As to the rest, Sir Gilbert Sampson was a man of good understanding, of extensive knowledge, possessing strong natural powers of mind, and altogether free from every species of affectation.

Lady Sampson had, while she lived, governed by permission of her lord and master. She had dictated concerning the petty details of life; and after her death, her daughter reigned in her stead. Sir Gilbert never troubled himself about trifles; but Miss Sampson took all that care entirely off her father’s hands. The pleasure of his life was the company of a few old acquaintances; but he tolerated parties when Miss Sampson could manage to assemble them.

And this was not a difficulty, even though Sir Gilbert had been a soap-boiler; for his cook was not a soap-boiler, and his fishmonger was not a soap-boiler, and his wine merchant was not a soap-boiler. Sir Gilbert’s dinners were very excellent; and those who partook of them praised them much, and did not say a word about soap while they were at dinner; and that was very kind, and exceedingly condescending: for it is a piece of great presumption in a man who has acquired a property by honest industry to give sumptuous entertainments to those who are spending or who have spent what their ancestors earned for them.

Enough for the present of Sir Gilbert Sampson. Be it however observed by the way, that our good and facetious friend, Sir Andrew Featherstone, regarded Sir Gilbert without any feeling of aristocratic pride, and so did many others of his acquaintance; and that even the Hon. Philip Martindale behaved very politely to him, inasmuch as he was occasionally under apprehension that it might be desirable for him to disencumber and improve the Martindale estate by the means of Sir Gilbert’s wealth. At this meeting, owing to previous matters already recorded, the idea of the possibility of Miss Sampson becoming Mrs., and, in process of time, Lady Martindale, took very strong hold of the young gentleman’s imagination. He therefore, without being aware of any difference in his manner, paid very extraordinary attention to Sir Gilbert; and as the young lady observed this, and was rather ambitious of the honor of so high an alliance, and as she thought that the best way to make a conquest, or to secure one already made, was to make herself agreeable; and as she thought that the best way to make herself agreeable was to put herself very much in the way of the person to whom she wished to be agreeable, and to talk to him and listen to his talk, and smile at what he said if he seemed to think it witty, and to manifest that her attention was more taken up with him than with any one else: Miss Sampson acted upon this principle, but in the over-officiousness of her zeal carried her system so far as to make it almost a persecution.

As to the effect thereby produced upon the Hon. Philip Martindale, very little if any progress was made in his affections. He was accustomed to homage and attention, and took it as a matter of course; he had experienced quite as much attention from the friends of ladies of higher rank than Miss Sampson; and the charms of the young lady’s person or conversation were nothing to him in his matrimonial speculations. If Mr. John Martindale had been a man of infirm health, and likely soon to decide the question as to who should possess his large property, Philip Martindale would not have had any thought whatever of an alliance so much beneath the dignity of his rank and the purity of his blood; or were the old gentleman a little less capricious, or had the young gentleman been a little more prudent in the management of his affairs, then Miss Sampson might have had the beauty of a Venus, the wisdom of a Minerva, or the wealth of Croesus, and these qualities would have made no impression. On the other hand, under the then present circumstances, Miss Sampson needed not to take any pains to render herself agreeable; for had her person been deformed, and her mind that of an idiot, yet her father, by the accumulation of a large fortune, had done quite enough to make her perfectly agreeable.

And yet, notwithstanding all this confession which we have made for Mr. Philip, we would not have our readers to imagine that the young gentleman was devoid of good qualities or good feelings altogether; he might not have been so candid in his confession for himself as we have been for him, but he was not altogether aware of the influence of circumstances upon his mind. He was placed in a certain rank in society, and must keep up the dignity of that rank; and it was his misfortune if necessity put him upon using means for that purpose not quite in unison with his better judgment. Royalty itself has not free choice in matters of the heart; and nobility, as it approaches royalty in its splendour, is sometimes assimilated to it in its restraints and perplexities. Still, however, making every concession which candour and human kindness prompt us to make in behalf of Philip Martindale; and admitting all the extenuations which a merciful advocate could suggest, we cannot help thinking, and it is our duty to say it, that if he had abstained from the foolish and low pursuits of gaming in all its varieties, and if he had cherished and preserved that spirit of independence which his excellent mother, Lady Martindale, had endeavoured to instil into his mind, he might have upheld the dignity of his rank, if he had sacrificed a little of its splendour. But to our history.

We have mentioned as the patroness of the archery-meeting, Lady Featherstone; and we have said that this lady had two daughters, Lucy and Isabella. It has also been observed that Sir Andrew Featherstone felt a wish to unite one of these young ladies in marriage with Philip Martindale. This was a very natural ambition. The two families had been intimate for several generations. The Martindales had, by various circumstances, gradually advanced in wealth; but the reverse had been the lot of the Featherstones, though they were quite as old and good a family as the Martindales. Singular indeed it was that the only person in the Martindale family who showed any symptoms of alienation from the Featherstones was old John Martindale: the singularity, however, consisted in this, that he had not shown any coolness, or behaved with any reserve, on the increase of his own property; but he had carried himself proudly towards them only since his cousin had acquired a title of nobility and had become a peer. Yet the old gentleman professed to laugh at titles; but nobody thought that old John Martindale was a fool.

Sir Andrew Featherstone, being a good-humoured man, took little notice of countless insults, affronts, slights, and disrespectfulnesses, whereby myriads of the human species are most grievously tormented. He did not, therefore, heed or observe the coldness of old Mr. Martindale; nor was he at all angry with Philip that he gave much of his attention to Sir Gilbert Sampson, and that he tolerated the attentions of Miss Sampson. Lady Featherstone, however, was more observant; and notwithstanding the incessant and manifold attention which she paid to all the party, could not help noticing how very gracious Philip Martindale was with Sir Gilbert. Various were the stratagems by which her ladyship endeavoured and contrived to place Philip in juxtaposition with her daughters when they adjourned to the collation; and very agreeable was her surprise when, after the strictest observation, she did not discern any wandering of the eyes of the young gentleman towards that part of the table where Miss Sampson was seated. Her fears were still farther diminished, when she found that Miss Sampson was deeply, and to all appearance most agreeably, engaged in conversation with a very elegant young gentleman, who seemed almost as much pleased with Miss Sampson as he was with himself. We owe it to our readers to introduce this young gentleman.

Henry Augustus Tippetson was a gentleman of good family, but being a younger brother, and very indolent, was not likely to make any great figure in the world. He was of middle stature; very slender, very fair, very near-sighted when he happened to think of it; having flaxen hair and blue eyes; suspected, but unjustly, of using rouge; very expensive in his dress, and one of Delcroix’s best customers. He was not one of the archers, though he had once attempted to use a bow. He found that the exertion was too much for him, and he feared it might harden his hands. He expressed to Miss Sampson the same fears for her; but the young lady heeded not the apprehension.

Lady Featherstone was very happy to see Miss Sampson so employed; but when her ladyship turned her attention to her own daughters and the gentleman whom she had seated by them, not all her powers of penetration could discover to which of the young ladies Philip Martindale was paying the greatest attention; and most of all was her mind disturbed by observing, that when he addressed himself either to one or the other, though it was with perfect politeness, it was with perfect indifference.

The sports of the day were concluded by a ball, which resembled in every point every ball of the same character. There was the usual allowance of dancing, negus, nonsense, tossing of heads, sneering, quizzing, showing off, blundering, and all the rest of that kind of amusement. It enters not into our plan to dwell any longer on this festival. We must return to Brigland.