Miss Foster. O do not make-believe. I am in love with him myself, and have been any time since Nelson and the Nile. As for you, Dolly, since he went away six months ago, you have been positively in the megrims. I shall date your loss of appetite from George Austin’s vanishing. No, my dear, our family require entertainment: we must have wit about us, and beauty, and the bel air.
Barbara. Well, Miss Dorothy, perhaps it’s out of my place: but I do hope Mr. Austin will come: I should love to have him see my necklace on.
Dorothy. Necklace? what necklace? Did he give you a necklace?
Barbara. Yes, indeed, Miss, that he did: the very same day he drove you in his curricle to Penshurst. You remember, Miss, I couldn’t go.
Dorothy. I remember.
Miss Foster. And so do I. I had a touch of . . . Foster in the blood: the family gout, dears! . . . And you, you ungrateful nymph, had him a whole day to yourself, and not a word to tell me when you returned.
Dorothy. I remember. (Rising.) Is that the necklace, Barbara? It does not suit you. Give it me.
Barbara. La, Miss Dorothy, I wouldn’t for the world.
Dorothy. Come, give it me. I want it. Thank you: you shall have my birthday pearls instead.
Miss Foster. Why, Dolly, I believe you’re jealous of the maid. Foster, Foster: always a Foster trick to wear the willow in anger.