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 and presently brought down tea-pot, cream-ewer, and sugar-basin.

“And mun we have th’ urn?”

“Yes; and now get it ready as quickly as you can, for the sooner we have tea over, the sooner they will go—at least, I hope so. Heigho! I wish they were gone,” she sighed as she returned to the drawing-room. “Still,” she thought, as she paused at the door ere opening it, “if Robert would but come even now how bright all would be! How comparatively easy the task of amusing these people, if he were present! There would be an interest in hearing him talk (though he never says much in company) and in talking in his presence: there can be no interest in hearing any of them, or in speaking to them. How they will gabble when the curates come in, and how weary I shall grow with listening to them! But I suppose I am a selfish fool: these are very respectable gentlefolks; I ought no doubt to be proud of their countenance: I don’t say they are not as good as I am—far from it—but they are different from me.”

She went in.

Yorkshire people, in those days, took their tea round the table; sitting well into it, with their knees duly introduced under the mahogany. It was essential to have a multitude of plates of bread and butter, varied in sorts and plentiful in quantity: it was thought proper, too, that on the centre-plate should stand a glass dish of marmalade; among the