at Gray Gillian is turned out for a brood mare, so old George
won't let me ride her; old servants are such tyrants, my lady. And my
Barbary hen has laid two eggs; Heaven knows the trouble we had to bring
her to it. And Dame Best, that is my husband's old nurse, Mrs. Quickly,
has had soup and pudding from the Hall everyday; and once she went so
far as to say it wasn't altogether a bad pudding. She is not a very
grateful woman, in a general way, poor thing! I made it with these
hands."

Vane writhed.

"Happy pudding!" observed Mr. Cibber.

"Is this mockery, sir?" cried Vane, with a sudden burst of irritation.

"No, sir; it is gallantry," replied Cibber, with perfect coolness.

"Will you hear a little music in the garden?" said Vane to Mrs.
Woffington, pooh-poohing his wife's news.

"Not till I hear the end of Dame Bess."

"Best, my lady."

"Dame Best interests _me,_ Mr. Vane."

"Ay, and Ernest is very fond of her, too, when he is at home. She is in
her nice new cottage, dear; but she misses the draughts that were in
her old one--they were like old friends. 'The only ones I have, I'm
thinking,' said the dear cross old thing; and there stood I, on her
floor, with a flannel petticoat in both hands, that I had made for her,
and ruined my finger. Look else, my Lord Foppington?" She extended a
hand the color of cream.

"Permit me, madam?" taking out his glasses, with which he inspected her
finger; and gravely announced to the company: "The laceration is, in
fact, discernible. May I be permitted, madam," added he, "to kiss this
fair hand, which I should never have suspected of having ever made
itself half so useful?"

"Ay, my lord!" said she, coloring slightly, "you shall, because you are
so old; but I don't say for a young gentleman, unless it was the one
that belongs to me; and he does not ask me."

"My dear Mabel; pray remember we are not at Willoughby."

"I see we are not, Ernest." And the dove-like eyes filled brimful; and
all her innocent prattle was put an end to.

"What brutes men are," thought Mrs. Woffington. "They are not worthy
even of a fool like this."

Mr. Vane once more pressed her to hear a little music in the garden;
and this time she consented. Mr. Vane was far from being unmoved by
his wife's arrival, and her true affection. But she worried him; he
was anxious, above all things, to escape from his present position, and
separate the rival queens; and this was the only way he could see to do