lady, crowded round her easy-chair,
one holding her ear-trumpet, another an orange, and a third a
smelling-bottle, while a fourth was busily engaged in patting and
punching the pillows which were arranged for her support. On the
opposite side sat a bald-headed old gentleman, with a good-humoured,
benevolent face--the clergyman of Dingley Dell; and next him sat
his wife, a stout, blooming old lady, who looked as if she were well
skilled, not only in the art and mystery of manufacturing home-made
cordials greatly to other people's satisfaction, but of tasting them
occasionally very much to her own. A little hard-headed, Ripstone
pippin-faced man, was conversing with a fat old gentleman in one corner;
and two or three more old gentlemen, and two or three more old ladies,
sat bolt upright and motionless on their chairs, staring very hard at
Mr. Pickwick and his fellow-voyagers.

'Mr. Pickwick, mother,' said Mr. Wardle, at the very top of his voice.

'Ah!' said the old lady, shaking her head; 'I can't hear you.'

'Mr. Pickwick, grandma!' screamed both the young ladies together.

'Ah!' exclaimed the old lady. 'Well, it don't much matter. He don't care
for an old 'ooman like me, I dare say.'

'I assure you, ma'am,' said Mr. Pickwick, grasping the old lady's hand,
and speaking so loud that the exertion imparted a crimson hue to his
benevolent countenance--'I assure you, ma'am, that nothing delights me
more than to see a lady of your time of life heading so fine a family,
and looking so young and well.'

'Ah!' said the old lady, after a short pause: 'it's all very fine, I
dare say; but I can't hear him.'

'Grandma's rather put out now,' said Miss Isabella Wardle, in a low
tone; 'but she'll talk to you presently.'

Mr. Pickwick nodded his readiness to humour the infirmities of age,
and entered into a general conversation with the other members of the
circle.

'Delightful situation this,' said Mr. Pickwick.

'Delightful!' echoed Messrs. Snodgrass, Tupman, and Winkle.

'Well, I think it is,' said Mr. Wardle.

'There ain't a better spot o' ground in all Kent, sir,' said the
hard-headed man with the pippin--face; 'there ain't indeed, sir--I'm
sure there ain't, Sir.' The hard-headed man looked triumphantly round,
as if he had been very much contradicted by somebody, but had got the
better of him at last.

'There ain't a better spot o' ground in all Kent,' said the hard-headed
man again, after a pause.

''Cept Mullins