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 "I think they are expecting a large party at home. Lord Eskdale was beginning to say something about it, and then she gave him a look, and he stopped short."

"What! I suppose we are not to know, for fear we should expect to be asked. Why, it is just the very thing I would go miles out of the way to avoid, and the last society into which I should like to take my girls."

"Oh, mamma!" said Eliza, "I wish you would not say that; and I wish they would ask us constantly to their house. It is very odd, that though I feel afraid of everybody all the time, there is nothing I like so much as dining there. And I am sure, mamma, it would be very good for my manner, which you say is so unformed at home. Before I have crossed the hall at Eskdale Castle I feel quite refined," she said, laughing.

Mrs. Douglas laughed too, for though she rarely lost any opportunity of speaking malevolently of her neighbours' children, she was very much disposed to admire her own. And her own misanthropy found a pleasant relief in Eliza's enjoyable views of life.