At the hall door were assembled all those I loved on earth--and dearly, too, I loved them.  My mother, as good and kind a mother as ever nursed a somewhat numerous and noisy progeny; my sisters, dear, sweet, good girls; and half-a-dozen brothers, honest, generous, capital fellows; our father, too--such a father!--we always agreed that no one could come up to him.  Other fellows might have very good fathers, but they were not equal to him!  He could be just like one of us at cricket, or out fishing, or shooting, and yet he was always right, and there was not a finer-looking gentleman in the county, and that every one said.  We were all at home for the Midsummer holidays--that is to say, we boys; our mother was not a person to let her girls go to school.  Who could say that we were not met for the last time in our lives?