"It's George!" said she, and blushed a little, from which I guessed George must be the bridegroom—George Standish, whose name and description Sophy had given me before we came; and given very accurately. He was tall, but not so tall as the cousins, and broad-shouldered, but he would never carry anything like their weight. Then he had blue-black hair, beard, and brows, and a clever-looking face; very broad and white as to the forehead, and very brown as to all below it. I had heard him praised as a most kind and skilful country surgeon, and the best rider 'cross country in that or any ten parishes of the Wolds, and he looked as if both encomiums must be true. It was quite a love-*match, everybody said. Mary might have married more money, but she preferred George, like a wise woman. Two of her ancient aspirants were present and pointed out to me by Sophy: old Mr. Jewson, of Harghill Farm, who was rich enough to have kept her a carriage if she would have taken him for that; and young Philip Murgatroyd, a man with a fierce face, who might have been a melodramatic villain, but was not—only a young farmer with innovating ideas.
The unsuppressed noise did not cease for a moment, and I saw the wide-mouthed damsel at the door thrice announce tea as ready before she made herself heard by her mistress; but once heard, a simultaneous hungry movement took place, and Cousin David came and roared at me, "Now, little Miss Poppy, we will go in together, and you shall sit by me." So I rose up, proposing to stiffen my back and lay my hand lightly on the young giant's arm, as we had been laboriously taught to do at dancing-school, when I felt that powerful masculine member encircling me behind, and I saw the biggest boots that had ever met my eyes break into an uncouth step to which I was perforce compelled to keep a measure with my own toes in the air; they only alighted once, and that was on one of the boots aforesaid, which they would have delighted to crush into mummy if they had been able.
Finally I was landed breathless and shaken, like a kitten that a terrier has had in its mouth for frolic rather than mischief, in a chair very broad in the beam, which I was expected to share in part with my big cavalier, for, long as was the table, each individual of the company took up so much room that hardly was there found accommodation for all. But at last everybody was shaken into place, and the business of the hour began. And a most weighty business it was. My eyes have never since beheld such a tea; a cold sirloin of beef, ham boiled and ham frizzled, game pie and game roast, and every kind of tart and cake that the ingenuity of cook with unlimited materials could devise. Cousin David swiftly supplied me with provisions for a week, and then Cousin Joseph, who happened to be on the other side of me, hospitably wished to add more, on which Cousin David leant across and said, "No poaching on my manor, Master Joseph; attend you to your left-hand neighbour. Now, Miss Poppy, I am going to give you a pretty little wing of this partridge,"—which he did, and then took the rest of the bird to his own share.
