It was not Riccabocca himself that they approved and blessed,--it was the gentleman in the white waistcoat who had made Miss Jemima Madam Rickeybockey! Leaning on his wife's arm (for it was a habit of the squire to lean on his wife's arm rather than she on his, when he was specially pleased; and there was something touching in the sight of that strong sturdy frame thus insensibly, in hours of happiness, seeking dependence on the frail arm of woman),--leaning, I say, on his wife's arm, the squire, about the hour of sunset, walked down to the booth by the lake.
All the parish-young and old, man, woman, and child, were assembled there, and their faces seemed to bear one family likeness, in the common emotion which animated all, as they turned to his frank, fatherly smile.
Squire Hazeldean stood at the head of the long table: he filled a horn with ale from the brimming tankard beside him.

Then he looked round, and lifted his hand to request silence; and ascending the chair, rose in full view of all.

Every one felt that the squire was about to make a speech, and the earnestness of the attention was proportioned to the rarity of the event; for (though he was not unpractised in the oratory of the hustings) only thrice before had the squire made what could fairly be called "a speech" to the villagers of Hazeldean,--once on a kindred festive occasion, when he had presented to them his bride; once in a contested election for the shire, in which he took more than ordinary interest, and was not quite so sober as he ought to have been; once in a time of great agricultural distress, when in spite of reduction of rents, the farmers had been compelled to discard a large number of their customary labourers, and when the squire had said, "I have given up keeping the hounds because I want to make a fine piece of water (that was the origin of the lake), and to drain all the low lands round the Park.

Let every man who wants work come to me!" And that sad year the parish rates of Hazeldean were not a penny the heavier.
Now, for the fourth time, the squire rose, and thus he spoke,--at his right hand, Harry; at his left, Frank; at the bottom of the table, as vice-president, Parson Dale, his little wife behind him, only obscurely seen.

She cried readily, and her handkerchief was already before her eyes..