It was evening, and the girandoles were all a sparkling haze of light. There was no company but these three; for his lordship had of late shown a peevish avoidance of his friends, and his implied intimation of a desire for solitude had been generally respected--infinitely to the disgust of his young Countess, who, never wedded to domestic dullness, found in this infliction of it, under the circumstances, an intolerably aggravated grievance. She sat like a figure of fate, distilling frost. Moll, leaning back in her chair, linked her hands behind her head, stretched deliciously, gave a prodigious yawn, and rattling her little heels on the floor, came erect again, and looked in a collapsed way at her ladyship. “Sure, you’d find stitching easier, wouldn’t you,” she said, “if you took off that black sling of a thing.” (The injured wife still advertised her hurt on occasion.) “No,” answered the lady shortly, pursing her lips. “I shouldn’t.” “Wouldn’t you, now?” said the slut, and settled herself down for a tease. She was a born chatterer, as glib at retort as she was garrulous, and the bump of reverence had been wholly denied her. She looked very pretty, nevertheless, in her evening frock of flowered lutestring, with her bright hair tumbling over her bright cheeks, and dressed at each temple with a knot of pink ribbon. “Well, there’s no accounting for tastes. If I’d hurt my arm, I should either forget the bruise or forget my work. They don’t pull together.” “I haven’t hurt my arm.” “Not?” “It was bitten by a dog.” “Sakes, now! What made him do it?” “What makes any dog bite? An evil disposition, I suppose.” “You weren’t taking his bone away from him, by chance?” “Not I. He’s welcome to a whole skeleton of bones for me.” “All except the spare-rib, maybe.” His lordship, from his place apart, went “Ha-ha!”--and immediately looked furiously solemn. My lady, beyond a slight flushing of the cheek, showed no consciousness of the interruption. Moll turned in her chair, leaning her arms on the back and her chin on her crossed hands. “That’s you,” she said. “Is your book so funny?” “Killing,” answered Chesterfield. “’Tis--’tis a tract on drainage.” “Lord, now--how humoursome! No wonder it makes you roar. But, sure, there’s no laughter in your face. You look as cross as a Good Friday bun.” “Zounds! I’m amused, I tell you,” he said; “as amused as a dog when a cat arches her back at him.” “I’ve seen more amused things than that. Come, prithee, leave your book and let us talk. What do you want to read for when a guest is by?” “O! just to occupy my mind.” “Put something into nothing, do you mean? Well, ’tis better empty than filled with drainage.” He laughed, without hilarity, but laid aside his reading. “Well,” said he; “I am at your service.” “That’s right,” she said. “And so we’ll make a merry company, we three--the best in the middle and the bread on each side, like a duck sandwich.” “Little merriment in a sandwich, to my thinking.”