"I had been in two minds about accepting Sally Flambard's invitation. She is my very good friend but her parties are rather like a table d'hote. Her interests are multitudinous, and all are reflected in her hospitality, so that a procession goes through her house which looks like a rehearsal for the Judgement Day.
'Who's the dark fellow opposite George Lamington?'
Her face brightened into interest. 'That's my new discovery. A country neighbor, no less -- but a new breed altogether. His name is Goodeve. Sir Robert Goodeve. He has just succeeded to the place and title.'
Of course I knew Goodeve, that wonderful moated house in the lap of the Downs, but I had never met one of the race. I had a notion that it had died out. The Goodeves are one of those families about which geneaologists write monographs, a specimen of that unennobled gentry which is the oldest stock in England. They had been going on in their undistinguished way since Edward the Confessor."
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