as if he meant to trip her up.

And now Miss Betty Barker was a proud and happy woman! She stirred the
fire, and shut the door, and sat as near to it as she could, quite on
the edge of her chair. When Peggy came in, tottering under the weight
of the tea-tray, I noticed that Miss Barker was sadly afraid lest
Peggy should not keep her distance sufficiently. She and her mistress
were on very familiar terms in their every-day intercourse, and Peggy
wanted now to make several little confidences to her, which Miss
Barker was on thorns to hear, but which she thought it her duty as a
lady to repress. So she turned away from all Peggy's asides and signs;
but she made one or two very malapropos answers to what was said; and
at last, seized with a bright idea, she exclaimed, "Poor sweet Carlo!
I'm forgetting him. Come down-stairs with me, poor little doggie, and
it shall have its tea, it shall!"

In a few minutes she returned, bland and benignant as before; but I
thought she had forgotten to give the "poor little doggie" anything to
eat, judging by the avidity with which he swallowed down chance pieces
of cake. The tea tray was abundantly laden--I was pleased to see it, I
was so hungry; but I was afraid the ladies present might think it
vulgarly heaped up. I know they would have done at their own houses;
but somehow the heaps disappeared here. I saw Mrs. Jamieson eating
seed-cake slowly and considerately, as she did everything; and I was
rather surprised, for I knew she had told us on the occasion of her
last party that she never had it in her house, it reminded her so much
of scented soap. She always gave us Savoy biscuits. However, Mrs.
Jamieson, kindly indulgent to Miss Barker's want of knowledge of the
customs of high life, and to spare her feelings, ate three large
pieces of seed-cake, with a placid, ruminating expression of
countenance, not unlike a cow's.

After tea there was some little demur and difficulty. We were six in
number; four could play at Preference, and for the other two there was
Cribbage. But all except myself (I was rather afraid of the Cranford
ladies at cards, for it was the most earnest and serious business they
ever engaged in) were anxious to be of the "pool." Even Miss Barker,
while declaring she did not know Spadille from Manille, was evidently
hankering to take a hand. The dilemma was soon put an end to by a
singular kind of noise. If a baron's daughter-in-law could ever be
supposed to snore, I sh