The cards for dinner having been issued, it became the duty of Mrs. Timmins to make further arrangements respecting the invitations to the tea-party which was to follow the more substantial meal.

These arrangements are difficult, as any lady knows who is in the habit of entertaining her friends.  There are ­

People who are offended if you ask them to tea whilst others have been asked to dinner;

People who are offended if you ask them to tea at all; and cry out furiously, “Good heavens!  Jane my love, why do these Timminses suppose that I am to leave my dinner-table to attend their ----- soiree?” (the dear reader may fill up the ----- to any strength, according to his liking) ­or, “Upon my word, William my dear, it is too much to ask us to pay twelve shillings for a brougham, and to spend I don’t know how much in gloves, just to make our curtsies in Mrs. Timmins’s little drawing-room.”  Mrs. Moser made the latter remark about the Timmins affair, while the former was uttered by Mr. Grumpley, barrister-at-law, to his lady, in Gloucester Place.

That there are people who are offended if you don’t ask them at all, is a point which I suppose nobody will question.  Timmins’s earliest friend in life was Simmins, whose wife and family have taken a cottage at Mortlake for the season.

“We can’t ask them to come out of the country,” Rosa said to her Fitzroy ­(between ourselves, she was delighted that Mrs. Simmins was out of the way, and was as jealous of her as every well-regulated woman should be of her husband’s female friends) ­“we can’t ask them to come so far for the evening.”

“Why, no, certainly.” said Fitzroy, who has himself no very great opinion of a tea-party; and so the Simminses were cut out of the list.

And what was the consequence?  The consequence was, that Simmins and Timmins cut when they met at Westminster; that Mrs. Simmins sent back all the books which she had borrowed from Rosa, with a withering note of thanks; that Rosa goes about saying that Mrs. Simmins squints; that Mrs. S., on her side, declares that Rosa is crooked, and behaved shamefully to Captain Hicks in marrying Fitzroy over him, though she was forced to do it by her mother, and prefers the Captain to her husband to this day.  If, in a word, these two men could be made to fight, I believe their wives would not be displeased; and the reason of all this misery, rage, and dissension, lies in a poor little twopenny dinner-party in Lilliput Street.

Well, the guests, both for before and after meat, having been asked, old Mrs. Gashleigh, Rosa’s mother ­(and, by consequence, Fitzroy’s dear mother-in-law, though I promise you that “dear” is particularly sarcastic) ­Mrs. Gashleigh of course was sent for, and came with Miss Eliza Gashleigh, who plays on the guitar, and Emily, who limps a little, but plays sweetly on the concertina.  They live close by ­trust them for that.  Your mother-in-law is always within hearing, thank our stars for the attention of the dear women.  The Gashleighs, I say, live close by, and came early on the morning after Rosa’s notes had been issued for the dinner.

When Fitzroy, who was in his little study, which opens into his little dining-room ­one of those absurd little rooms which ought to be called a gentleman’s pantry, and is scarcely bigger than a shower-bath, or a state cabin in a ship ­when Fitzroy heard his mother-in-law’s knock, and her well-known scuffling and chattering in the passage ­in which she squeezed up young Buttons, the page, while she put questions to him regarding baby, and the cook’s health, and whether she had taken what Mrs. Gashleigh had sent overnight, and the housemaid’s health, and whether Mr. Timmins had gone to chambers or not ­and when, after this preliminary chatter, Buttons flung open the door, announcing ­“Mrs. Gashleigh and the young ladies,” Fitzroy laid down his Times newspaper with an expression that had best not be printed here, and took his hat and walked away.

Mrs. Gashleigh has never liked him since he left off calling her mamma, and kissing her.  But he said he could not stand it any longer ­he was hanged if he would.  So he went away to chambers, leaving the field clear to Rosa, mamma, and the two dear girls.

Or to one of them, rather:  for before leaving the house, he thought he would have a look at little Fitzroy up stairs in the nursery, and he found the child in the hands of his maternal aunt Eliza, who was holding him and pinching him as if he had been her guitar, I suppose; so that the little fellow bawled pitifully ­and his father finally quitted the premises.

No sooner was he gone, although the party was still a fortnight off, than the women pounced upon his little study, and began to put it in order.  Some of his papers they pushed up over the bookcase, some they put behind the Encyclopædia.  Some they crammed into the drawers ­where Mrs. Gashleigh found three cigars, which she pocketed, and some letters, over which she cast her eye; and by Fitz’s return they had the room as neat as possible, and the best glass and dessert-service mustered on the study table.

It was a very neat and handsome service, as you may be sure Mrs. Gashleigh thought, whose rich uncle had purchased it for the young couple, at Spode and Copeland’s; but it was only for twelve persons.

It was agreed that it would be, in all respects, cheaper and better to purchase a dozen more dessert-plates; and with “my silver basket in the centre,” Mrs. G. said (she is always bragging about that confounded bread-basket), “we need not have any extra china dishes, and the table will look very pretty.”

On making a roll-call of the glass, it was calculated that at least a dozen or so tumblers, four or five dozen wines, eight water-bottles, and a proper quantity of ice-plates, were requisite; and that, as they would always be useful, it would be best to purchase the articles immediately.  Fitz tumbled over the basket containing them, which stood in the hall as he came in from chambers, and over the boy who had brought them ­and the little bill.

The women had had a long debate, and something like a quarrel, it must be owned, over the bill of fare.  Mrs. Gashleigh, who had lived a great part of her life in Devonshire, and kept house in great state there, was famous for making some dishes, without which, she thought, no dinner could be perfect.  When she proposed her mock-turtle, and stewed pigeons, and gooseberry-cream, Rosa turned up her nose ­a pretty little nose it was, by the way, and with a natural turn in that direction.

“Mock-turtle in June, mamma!” said she.

“It was good enough for your grandfather, Rosa,” the mamma replied:  “it was good enough for the Lord High Admiral, when he was at Plymouth; it was good enough for the first men in the county, and relished by Lord Fortyskewer and Lord Rolls; Sir Lawrence Porker ate twice of it after Exeter races; and I think it might be good enough for ­”

“I will not have it, mamma!” said Rosa, with a stamp of her foot; and Mrs. Gashleigh knew what resolution there was in that.  Once, when she had tried to physic the baby, there had been a similar fight between them.

So Mrs. Gashleigh made out a carte, in which the soup was left with a dash ­a melancholy vacuum; and in which the pigeons were certainly thrust in among the entrees; but Rosa determined they never should make an entree at all into her dinner-party, but that she would have the dinner her own way.

When Fitz returned, then, and after he had paid the little bill of 6d. for the glass, Rosa flew to him with her sweetest smiles, and the baby in her arms.  And after she had made him remark how the child grew every day more and more like him, and after she had treated him to a number of compliments and caresses, which it were positively fulsome to exhibit in public, and after she had soothed him into good humor by her artless tenderness, she began to speak to him about some little points which she had at heart.

She pointed out with a sigh how shabby the old curtains looked since the dear new glasses which her darling Fitz had given her had been put up in the drawing-room.  Muslin curtains cost nothing, and she must and would have them.

The muslin curtains were accorded.  She and Fitz went and bought them at Shoolbred’s, when you may be sure she treated herself likewise to a neat, sweet pretty half-mourning (for the Court, you know, is in mourning) ­a neat sweet barege, or calimanco, or bombazine, or tiffany, or some such thing; but Madame Camille, of Regent Street, made it up, and Rosa looked like an angel in it on the night of her little dinner.

“And, my sweet,” she continued, after the curtains had been accorded, “mamma and I have been talking about the dinner.  She wants to make it very expensive, which I cannot allow.  I have been thinking of a delightful and economical plan, and you, my sweetest Fitz, must put it into execution.”

“I have cooked a mutton-chop when I was in chambers,” Fitz said with a laugh.  “Am I to put on a cap and an apron?”

“No:  but you are to go to the ‘Mégathérium Club’ (where, you wretch, you are always going without my leave), and you are to beg Monsieur Mirobolant, your famous cook, to send you one of his best aides-de-camp, as I know he will, and with his aid we can dress the dinner and the confectionery at home for almost nothing, and we can show those purse-proud Topham Sawyers and Rowdys that the humble cottage can furnish forth an elegant entertainment as well as the gilded halls of wealth.”

Fitz agreed to speak to Monsieur Mirobolant.  If Rosa had had a fancy for the cook of the Prime Minister, I believe the deluded creature of a husband would have asked Lord John for the loan of him.