on cold meat-pie and ale.
    This groom is the pilot-fish before the nobler shark. Next evening, down
come Sir Leicester and my Lady with their largest retinue, and down come the
cousins and others from all the points of the compass. Thenceforth for some
weeks, backward and forward rush mysterious men with no names, who fly about all
those particular parts of the country on which Doodle is at present throwing
himself in an auriferous and malty shower, but who are merely persons of a
restless disposition and never do anything anywhere.
    On these national occasions, Sir Leicester finds the cousins useful. A
better man than the Honourable Bob Stables to meet the Hunt at dinner, there
could not possibly be. Better got up gentlemen than the other cousins, to ride
over to polling-booths and hustings here and there, and show themselves on the
side of England, it would be hard to find. Volumnia is a little dim, but she is
of the true descent; and there are many who appreciate her sprightly
conversation, her French conundrums so old as to have become in the cycles of
time almost new again, the honour of taking the fair Dedlock in to dinner, or
even the privilege of her hand in the dance. On these national occasions,
dancing may be a patriotic service; and Volumnia is constantly seen hopping
about, for the good of an ungrateful and unpensioning country.
    My Lady takes no great pains to entertain the numerous guests, and, being
still unwell, rarely appears until late in the day. But, at all the dismal
dinners, leaden lunches, basilisk balls, and other melancholy pageants, her mere
appearance is a relief. As to Sir Leicester, he conceives it utterly impossible
that anything can be wanting, in any direction, by any one who has the good
fortune to be received under that roof; and in a state of sublime satisfaction,
he moves among the company, a magnificent refrigerator.
    Daily the cousins trot through dust, and canter over roadside turf, away to
hustings and polling-booths (with leather gloves and hunting-whips for the
counties, and kid gloves and riding-canes for the boroughs), and daily bring
back reports on which Sir Leicester holds forth after dinner. Daily the restless
men who have no occupation in life, present the appearance of being rather busy.
Daily, Volumnia has a little cousinly talk with Sir Leicester on the state of
the nation, from which Sir Leicester is disposed to conclude that Volumnia is a
more reflecting woman than he had thought her.
    »How are we getting on?« says