ABSTRACT
Lady Cecilia was now impatient to have the house filled with company. She gave Helen a catalogue raisonné 94 of all who were expected at Clarendon Park, some for a fashionable three day’s visit; some for a week; some for a fortnight or three weeks, be the same more or less. ‘I have but one fixed principle,’ said she, ‘but I have one, - never to have tiresome people when it can possibly be avoided. Impossible, you know, it is sometimes. One’s own and one’s husband’s relations one must have; but, as for the rest, it’s one’s own fault if one fails in the first and last maxim of hospitality - to welcome the coming and speed the parting guest.’
