"Eat away, Fiddy," in treble, mimicking the bass.
"Uncle, don't attempt the game-pie. We'll be too late, as sure as our heads. Didn't you hear Mrs. Price say there was a power of company wanting seats; it would be too bad if we lost the sight after all."
"What, Prissy, worse than Admiral Byng's defeat, or my spoilt medal?"
"Oh! Uncle Rowland, how can you joke! Now, Fiddy, there's a dear creature, don't have anything to say to the cream-tart. What although we're as hungry as hawks, if we only get a good view to talk about at the Vicarage and Larks' Hall."
"There—Prissy, dear, then I've done. I'll just run and shake our myrtle crapes and fresh pinch our stomachers."
"Hold! no such thing, lasses. I'm not to be left here to feed in solitude, and without e'er a portfolio or picture. You little geese, it is two good hours to the exhibition. Are you to be frizzing, and painting, and lacing, and mincing, and capering for two mortal hours, and your poor country uncle left to spoil his digestion for want of something else to do than eat? Is that your gratitude, when here have I come against my will to introduce you to the wicked, gay world, and spoil your Arcadian simplicity? Don't make faces, Prissy!"
"Oh! Uncle Rowland; you are making base pretences."
"Indeed, sir, I think you are as wild to see the wonders as we are."
But the remonstrance had its effect, for the young ladies evidently sat down again, and, by the clatter of knives and forks, one could judge they condescended to do some justice to the good things provided for their solace, while the conversation went on in more regular order.
The lady in the Nankin sitting-room had decidedly the advantage in this situation, as she did not soliloquize in private, and she heard through the cupboard and the locked door of communication the chat of her neighbours. They spoke no treason, and they ought to be more prudent if they told secrets: it was a real benefit to a lonely wight, a little irritated in nerve and temper, to be a party to their lively, affectionate, simple intercourse; and, as the truth must be told, the lady in the Nankin sitting-room crossed her hands with a motion of indolent interest and turned her head with an air of listless pleasure, nodding and beating her foot lightly on the floor now and then, in interjection and commentary. She could figure the group perfectly. Two rosy little girls brought into the town for a day and a night's shopping and gadding, as they would call it, under the escort of an indulgent uncle: a bachelor probably, else madam, his wife, would have been there to keep them in order; and not so very elderly, for the good man was of what is styled a sprightly turn, and though his nieces submitted to his authority, there was a decidedly modified amount of reverence in the way in which they insisted,