Page:Lady Anne Granard 1.pdf/95

90 "I wish," said Lady Anne, "that my daughters would not take the trouble of thinking for me—I have settled the matter as I think best. I cannot imagine why I should be so unlucky as to have so many girls; it is really too provoking." "I wonder what Uncle Frank is like?" said Isabella. "I fancy him," replied Georgiana, "in a brown coat and wig." "I dare say," continued Lady Anne, "that he has got all sorts of odd ways and habits; but you must none of you mind them. He is now rich enough to have a style of his own. Be sure you contrive to let him know that we usually dine early—I want him to acquire a habit of spending his evenings here; but a dinner every day would be too much of a good thing—we should be ruined in a week." "I have borrowed Mrs. Palmer's backgammon-board," said Isabella, whose notion of an elderly gentleman's amusements of an evening was derived from what she had seen Mr. Palmer do. "Backgammon!" exclaimed her mother, with an expression of sovereign contempt; "had you not better have asked for a cribbage-board while you were about it?" Seven o'clock came; all the girls, excepting poor Isabella, were assembled in the drawing-room, and it would have been difficult to find a prettier coup d'œil, or one arranged with a better eye to effect. Lady