at the side; but I remember you said it was always like that when you
were a little girl. Well, it got on to puddings. I forgot to tell you,
though, there were plenty of candles on the table, without shades, and
a "bouquet" of flowers, all sorts (I am sure fixed in sand), in a gold
middle thing. Well, about the puddings--at least four of them were
planted on the table, awfully sweet and jammy, and Uncle John was quite
irritated with me because I could only eat two; and Aunt Maria, who has
got as deaf as a post, kept roaring to old Major Orwell, who sat next
her, "Children have no healthy appetites as in our day. Eh! what?" And
I wanted to scream in reply, "But I am grown up now, Aunt Maria!"

Uncle John asked me every question over and over, and old Lady
Farrington's false teeth jumped so once or twice that I got quite
nervous. That is the party, me, Major Orwell, Lady Farrington, and
Uncle and Aunt.

When dessert was about coming, _everything_ thing got lifted from the
table, and before you could say "Jack Robinson" off whisked the cloth.
I was so unprepared for it that I said "Oh!" and ducked my head, and
that made the cloth catch on old Lady Farrington's cap--she had to sit
on my side of the table, to be out of the draught--and, wasn't it
_dreadful_, it almost pulled it off, and with it the grey curls fixed
at the side, and the rest was all bald. So that was why it was so
loose--there was nothing to pin it to! And she glared at me, and fixed
it as straight as she could, but it had such a saucy look all the rest
of the evening.

I did apologise as well as I could, and there was such an awkward
pause; and after dinner we had coffee in the drawing-room, and then in
a little time tea, and between times they sat down to whist, all but