[Sidenote: _A Quiet Evening_]
It is a stuffy, boring place. You remember the house--enormous, tidy,
hideous, uncomfortable. Well, we had _such_ a dinner last night after I
arrived--soup, fish, everything popped on to the table for Great-uncle
John to carve at one end, and Great-aunt Maria at the other! A regular
aquarium specimen of turbot sat on its dish opposite him, while Aunt
Maria had a huge lot of soles. And there wasn't any need, because
there were four men-servants in the room who could easily have done it
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.
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