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.—Oh, mama; I am so distressed!

.—Why, my love; what has happened?

.—I am sure that odious Mr. Smithers over there is going to take me out.

.—What makes you think so?

.—Mrs. Grundy just now spoke to him; and he looked straight at me, and said "delighted, of course!"

.—Console yourself, my dear; I'll make it up to Mrs. Grundy.

.—How, pray?

.—Oh, when I return this dinner, I'll ask Griggs, whom she abhors, and pair her off with him!

.—You take me out, mon ami!

.—Are you sure?

.—Quite; it's the price of my coming.

.—How good you are!

.—Don't be too much flattered; it was a choice between dear little Smithers and yourself.

(to, at her right).—Do look at the expression on my husband's face!

(raising his glass).—H'm—really, now, it is hardly one of unclouded happiness, you know!

.—He is simply in despair.

.—Oh, hardly so bad as that, is it?

.—Worse, even. He is beginning a two-hour dinner with only that dreadfully heavy Mrs. Pompon to speak to.

.—He has that charming Mrs. Mariée on his left.

.—He has that charming Mrs. Mariée's back on his left—while she toys with Mr. Cavendish's soft speeches.

.—Ah, I see!

.—Watch dear Mrs. Pompon! Doesn't she glare deliciously at her caro sposo?

.—Rather, yes.

.—Poor old soul! What a Caudle he'll get tonight.

.—Well, really, the old party is making rather an exhibition of himself, you know, with the widow!

.—Of course he is; and that's what Mrs. Lightmourning is leading him on for.

.—I don't quite follow.

.—She wants to spoil Mrs. Grundy's dinner if possible.

.—Oh, do enlighten me!

.—Why, Mrs. Grundy has not even given her a place at Mr. Grundy's left.

.—And does she want it?

.—Unquestionably! They have quite an "affair" on just now, you know!

(over the cigars).—I say, Cavendish, you're a lucky dog! You've had that clever little Mrs. Mariee all through this infernally dull dinner.

.—H-m—it was deuced hard, though, doing the devoted to her, when that daisy-eyed little Pompon was showing her lovely blushes every time I got a chance to look at her.

.—Oh, that's the way the wind sets, is it? I don't go in for the ingénue, and that sort of thing.

.—Well, you had the mature in your charming hostess!

.—H-m—so I had— very mature, too. A little of Mrs. Grundy, my dear boy, goes a great way.

(in the drawing-room, before the men come in).—Between ourselves, Helen, his lordship is an insufferable bore.

.—You don't say so? I find him charming!

.—He was distant all through dinner, and so hard to talk to.

.—How odd! To me he always appears quite the reverse!

.—En passant, my dear, Jack Cavendish stole a good many glances at Nellie Pompon, in the other room.

.—Did he? I didn't notice them! It must have been when I was taking wine with Lord Bantling!

(later, in the drawing-room; laboriously).—I was saying, my dear Mrs. Grundy, that no—er—hospitality is so—er—altogether charming, you know, as a—er—little dinner like this, where all the-er—company is so—er—you know, felicitously selected, and—er—so judiciously disposed.