Page:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (emended first edition), Volume 3.djvu/34

24 too plainly that he should be glad to get rid of them;—and Mrs. Hargrave retired with her daughters and her grand-children (there are three of them now) to the grove. But the gentlemen remained: Mr. Huntingdon, as I intimated before, was determined to keep them as long as he could; and, being thus delivered from restraint, they gave a loose to all their innate madness, folly, and brutality, and made the house night after night one scene of riot, uproar, and confusion. Who among them behaved the worst, or who the best, I can not distinctly say; for, from the moment I discovered how things would be, I formed the resolution of retreating upstairs or locking myself into the library the instant I withdrew from the dining-room, and not coming near them again till breakfast;—but this I must say for Mr. Hargrave, that from all I could see of him, he was a model of decency, sobriety, and gentlemanly manners in comparison with the rest.

He did not join the party till a week or ten