MABEL. What! before you hear the news of dear Willoughby, Ernest? Lady Betty, I had so many things to tell him, and he sends me away.
CIBBER. Nay, really, ’tis too cruel.
WOFF. Pray, madam, your budget of country news: clotted cream so seldom comes to London quite fresh.
MABEL. There you see, Ernest. First, then, Grey Gillian is turned out for a brood mare, so old George won’t let me ride her.
WOFF. The barbarian!
MABEL. Old servants are such hard masters, my lady; and my Barbary hen has laid two eggs, Ernest. Heaven knows the trouble we have had to bring her to it. And dame Best (that’s his old nurse, Lady Lurewell) has had soup and pudding from the hall every day.
QUIN. Soup and pudding! that’s what I call true charity.
MABEL. Yes; and once she went so far as to say, “it wasn’t altogether a bad pudding.” I made it with these hands.
CIBBER. Happy pudding!
VANE. Is this mockery, sir?