Indeed,
he had been painted in the act of addressing his hereditary chawbacons in
the hall in which the picture was suspended. There he stood, with his
bright auburn hair (now rather badger-pied, perhaps, but still very
passable by candlelight)--his bright auburn hair, we say, swept boldly off
his lofty forehead, his hazy grey eyes flashing with the excitement of
drink and animation, his left hand reposing on the hip of his well-fitting
black pantaloons, while the right one, radiant with rings, and trimmed with
upturned wristband, sawed the air, as he rounded off the periods of the
well-accustomed saws.
Jawleyford, like a good many people, was very hospitable when in full
fig--two soups, two fishes, and the necessary concomitants; but he would
see any one far enough before he would give him a dinner merely because he
wanted one. That sort of ostentatious banqueting has about brought country
society in general to a deadlock. People tire of the constant revision of
plate, linen, and china.
Mrs. Jawleyford, on the other hand, was a very rough-and-ready sort of
woman, never put out of her way; and though she constantly preached the old
doctrine that girls 'are much better single than married,' she was always
on the look-out for opportunities of contradicting her assertions.
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