They ranged, as the Price Current says, from
eight to three thousand a year. Not the figure that purchases a Lady
Florentina!
There were many other guests, and some of them notable, though not
of the class and character to interest the fastidious mother of Lord
Valentine; but whoever and whatever they might be, of the sixty
or seventy persons who were seated each day in the magnificent
banqueting-room of Montacute Castle, feasting, amid pyramids of gold
plate, on the masterpieces of Leander, there was not a single individual
who did not possess one of the two great qualifications: they were all
of them cousins of the Duke of Bellamont, or proprietors in his county.
But we must not anticipate, the great day of the festival having hardly
yet commenced.
CHAPTER VI.
_A Festal Day_
IN THE Home Park was a colossal pavilion, which held more than two
thousand persons, and in which the townsfolk of Montacute were to dine;
at equal distances were several smaller tents, each of different colours
and patterns, and each bearing on a standard the name of one of the
surrounding parishes which belonged to the Duke of Bellamont, and to
the convenience and gratification of whose inhabitants these tents were
to-day dedicated.
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