“He knows every body who has been in India, but I very much suspect he does not know any body that Lord Montreville would think any body,” answered the lady, who never could endure her husband’s jolly friend, who certainly did eat, drink, talk, and laugh thirteen to the dozen, but who, she not unwisely thought, would be a very bad ingredient in this refined party; “Surely Sir James Ashgrove, the member for the county, would be a better person; we can give him a bed, you know.” “Very well—Ashgrove is a good fellow, and a sensible fellow, but he never gives you much of his conversation, unless you talk of the last division in Parliament, and then he will tell you which way every member voted, and the reasons of his vote into the bargain.” “But he is a man of good birth and good connexions, and quite a friend of the family besides; James’s godfather and all.” “Then, if we ask our good parson and his two daughters, we shall have quite enough. I don’t like a great let-off; it is much best to take matters quietly.” “Good heavens, Colonel Heckfield! you cannot be in earnest. What! that old proser, who makes a comma between every word, and a full stop nowhere! and those two Misses, one as old as the hills, and the other as giggling a girl as ever I saw. Besides. Lucy and she will get laughing and gossiping together, and Lucy never appears to advantage when Bell Stopford is with her.” “Whom had we best have then, my love?” responded the Colonel, who began to be weary of the discussion. “Why, first of all, Mrs. Haughtville,” answered Mrs. Heckfield, who had long ago prepared her list in her mind, “and Sir James Ashgrove (as _you_ wish), and young Mr. Lyon, Lord Petersfield’s nephew, and Sir Alan Byway, the great traveller, and Miss Pennefeather, who wrote those sweet novels; she is quite the lion of these parts, and people of fashion like to meet a genius; and then, my dear, I thought of asking Lord and Lady Bodlington.” “Mercy upon us, wife! why I don’t know them by sight.” “But I do, Colonel Heckfield, and a sweet woman she is. I was introduced to her at the ball the other night, and it would be but civil to ask them to dinner.” “I think it would be much better to have Mr. Denby and his nice daughter. But it is all the same to me; I don’t like running after fine folks, who care not a rush for us, that’s all.” “Well, if Lord and Lady Bodlington cannot come, then we will ask the Denbys. But I really am half pledged to ask them, for Lady Bodlington said the other night she heard I had the prettiest green-house in the world: and I said I hoped to have the pleasure of showing it to her.” “But we do not dine in the green-house?” “I assure you, my love, I understand these little matters better than you do, and it would seem quite marked if we did not ask the Bodlingtons.” Colonel Heckfield did not quite understand what would seem marked, but he acquiesced.