Mrs Glegg held her large gold watch in her hand with the many-doubled chain round her fingers, and observed to Mrs Tulliver, who had just returned from a visit to the kitchen, that whatever it might be by other people’s clocks and watches, it was gone half-past twelve by hers. “I don’t know what ails sister Pullet,” she continued. “It used to be the way in our family for one to be as early as another,—I’m sure it was so in my poor father’s time,—and not for one sister to sit half an hour before the others came. But if the ways o’ the family are altered, it sha’n’t be _my_ fault; _I’ll_ never be the one to come into a house when all the rest are going away. I wonder _at_ sister Deane,—she used to be more like me. But if you’ll take my advice, Bessy, you’ll put the dinner forrard a bit, sooner than put it back, because folks are late as ought to ha’ known better.” “Oh dear, there’s no fear but what they’ll be all here in time, sister,” said Mrs Tulliver, in her mild-peevish tone. “The dinner won’t be ready till half-past one. But if it’s long for you to wait, let me fetch you a cheesecake and a glass o’ wine.” “Well, Bessy!” said Mrs Glegg, with a bitter smile and a scarcely perceptible toss of her head, “I should ha’ thought you’d known your own sister better. I never _did_ eat between meals, and I’m not going to begin. Not but what I hate that nonsense of having your dinner at half-past one, when you might have it at one. You was never brought up in that way, Bessy.” “Why, Jane, what can I do? Mr Tulliver doesn’t like his dinner before two o’clock, but I put it half an hour earlier because o’ you.” “Yes, yes, I know how it is with husbands,—they’re for putting everything off; they’ll put the dinner off till after tea, if they’ve got wives as are weak enough to give in to such work; but it’s a pity for you, Bessy, as you haven’t got more strength o’ mind. It’ll be well if your children don’t suffer for it. And I hope you’ve not gone and got a great dinner for us,—going to expense for your sisters, as ’ud sooner eat a crust o’ dry bread nor help to ruin you with extravagance. I wonder you don’t take pattern by your sister Deane; she’s far more sensible. And here you’ve got two children to provide for, and your husband’s spent your fortin i’ going to law, and’s likely to spend his own too. A boiled joint, as you could make broth of for the kitchen,” Mrs Glegg added, in a tone of emphatic protest, “and a plain pudding, with a spoonful o’ sugar, and no spice, ’ud be far more becoming.” With sister Glegg in this humour, there was a cheerful prospect for the day. Mrs Tulliver never went the length of quarrelling with her, any more than a water-fowl that puts out its leg in a deprecating manner can be said to quarrel with a boy who throws stones. But this point of the dinner was a tender one, and not at all new, so that Mrs Tulliver could make the same answer she had often made before.