or my spoilt medal?"

"Oh! Uncle Rowland, how can you joke! Now, Fiddy, there's a dear
creature, don't have anything to say to the cream-tart. What although
we're as hungry as hawks, if we only get a good view to talk about at
the Vicarage and Larks' Hall."

"There--Prissy, dear, then I've done. I'll just run and shake our myrtle
crapes and fresh pinch our stomachers."

"Hold! no such thing, lasses. I'm not to be left here to feed in
solitude, and without e'er a portfolio or picture. You little geese, it
is two good hours to the exhibition. Are you to be frizzing, and
painting, and lacing, and mincing, and capering for two mortal hours,
and your poor country uncle left to spoil his digestion for want of
something else to do than eat? Is that your gratitude, when here have I
come against my will to introduce you to the wicked, gay world, and
spoil your Arcadian simplicity? Don't make faces, Prissy!"

"Oh! Uncle Rowland; you are making base pretences."

"Indeed, sir, I think you are as wild to see the wonders as we are."

But the remonstrance had its effect, for the young ladies evidently sat
down again, and, by the clatter of knives and forks, one could judge
they condescended to do some justice to the good things provided for
their solace, while the conversation went on in more regular order.

The lady in the Nankin sitting-room had decidedly the advantage in this
situation, as she did not soliloquize in private, and she heard through
the cupboard and the locked door of communication the chat of her
neighbours. They spoke no treason, and they ought to be more prudent if
they told secrets: it was a real benefit to a lonely wight, a little
irritated in nerve and temper, to be a party to their lively,
affectionate, simple intercourse; and, as the truth must be told, the
lady in the Nankin sitting-room crossed her hands with a motion of
indolent interest and turned her head with an air of listless pleasure,
nodding and beating her foot lightly on the floor now and then, in
interjection and commentary. She could figure the group perfectly. Two
rosy little girls brought into the town for a day and a night's shopping
and gadding, as they would call it, under the escort of an indulgent
uncle: a bachelor probably, else madam, his wife, would have been there
to keep them in order; and not so very elderly, for the good man was of
what is styled a sprightly turn, and though his nieces submitted to his
authority, there was a