LADY K.—My dear Horace, you SHOULDN'T shake hands with Miss Prior. You should keep people of that class at a distance, my dear creature. [They go in to dinner, Captain TOUCHIT following with Mrs. BONNINGTON. As they go out, enter MARY with children's tea-tray, &c., children following, and after them Mrs. PRIOR. MARY gives her tea.]
MRS. PRIOR.—Thank you, Mary! You are so very kind! Oh, what delicious tea!
GEORGY.—I say, Mrs. Prior, I dare say you would like to dine best, wouldn't you?
MRS. P.—Bless you, my darling love, I had my dinner at one o'clock with my children at home.
GEORGY.—So had we: but we go in to dessert very often; and then don't we have cakes and oranges and candied-peel and macaroons and things! We are not to go in to-day; because Bella ate so many strawberries she made herself ill.
BELLA.—So did you.
GEORGY.—I'm a man, and men eat more than women, twice as much as women. When I'm a man I'll eat as much cake as ever I like. I say, Mary, give us the marmalade.
MRS. P.—Oh, what nice marmalade! I know of some poor children—
MISS P.—Mamma! don't, mamma [in an imploring tone].
MRS. P.—I know of two poor children at home, who have very seldom nice marmalade and cake, young people.