A Little Dinner at Timminss | Page 4

Rosa
when she chose to correspond with her friends.
Rosa, you may be sure, jumped with joy at the sight of this sweet
present; called her Charles (his first name is Samuel, but they have
sunk that) the best of men; embraced him a great number of times, to
the edification of her buttony little page, who stood at the landing; and
as soon as he was gone to chambers, took the new pen and a sweet
sheet of paper, and began to compose a poem.

"What shall it be about?" was naturally her first thought. "What should
be a young mother's first inspiration?" Her child lay on the sofa asleep
before her; and she began in her neatest hand--
"LINES
"ON MY SON BUNGAY DE BRACY GASHLEIGH TYMMYNS,
AGED TEN MONTHS.
"Tuesday.
"How beautiful! how beautiful thou seemest, My boy, my precious one,
my rosy babe! Kind angels hover round thee, as thou dreamest: Soft
lashes hide thy beauteous azure eye which gleamest."
"Gleamest? thine eye which gleamest? Is that grammar?" thought Rosa,
who had puzzled her little brains for some time with this absurd
question, when the baby woke. Then the cook came up to ask about
dinner; then Mrs. Fundy slipped over from No. 27 (they are opposite
neighbors, and made an acquaintance through Mrs. Fundy's macaw);
and a thousand things happened. Finally, there was no rhyme to babe
except Tippoo Saib (against whom Major Gashleigh, Rosa's
grandfather, had distinguished himself), and so she gave up the little
poem about her De Bracy.
Nevertheless, when Fitzroy returned from chambers to take a walk with
his wife in the Park, as he peeped through the rich tapestry hanging
which divided the two drawing-rooms, he found his dear girl still
seated at the desk, and writing, writing away with her ruby pen as fast
as it could scribble.
"What a genius that child has!" he said; "why, she is a second Mrs.
Norton!" and advanced smiling to peep over her shoulder and see what
pretty thing Rosa was composing.
It was not poetry, though, that she was writing, and Fitz read as
follows:--
"LILLIPUT STREET, Tuesday, 22nd May.
"Mr. and Mr. Fitzroy Tymmyns request the pleasure of Sir Thomas and
Lady Kicklebury's company at dinner on Wednesday, at 7 1/2 o'clock."
"My dear!" exclaimed the barrister, pulling a long face.
"Law, Fitzroy!" cried the beloved of his bosom, "how you do startle
one!"
"Give a dinner-party with our means!" said he.
"Ain't you making a fortune, you miser?" Rosa said. "Fifteen guineas a

day is four thousand five hundred a year; I've calculated it." And, so
saying, she rose and taking hold of his whiskers (which are as fine as
those of any man of his circuit,) she put her mouth close up against his
and did something to his long face, which quite changed the expression
of it; and which the little page heard outside the door.
"Our dining-room won't hold ten," he said.
"We'll only ask twenty, my love. Ten are sure to refuse in this season,
when everybody is giving parties. Look, here is the list."
"Earl and Countess of Bungay, and Lady Barbara Saint Mary's."
"You are dying to get a lord into the house," Timmins said (HE had not
altered his name in Fig-tree Court yet, and therefore I am not so
affected as to call him TYMMYNS).
"Law, my dear, they are our cousins, and must be asked," Rosa said.
"Let us put down my sister and Tom Crowder, then."
"Blanche Crowder is really so VERY fat, Fitzroy," his wife said, "and
our rooms are so VERY small."
Fitz laughed. "You little rogue," he said, "Lady Bungay weighs two of
Blanche, even when she's not in the f--"
"Fiddlesticks!" Rose cried out. "Doctor Crowder really cannot be
admitted: he makes such a noise eating his soup, that it is really quite
disagreeable." And she imitated the gurgling noise performed by the
Doctor while inhausting his soup, in such a funny way that Fitz saw
inviting him was out of the question.
"Besides, we mustn't have too many relations," Rosa went on. "Mamma,
of course, is coming. She doesn't like to be asked in the evening; and
she'll bring her silver bread-basket and her candlesticks, which are very
rich and handsome."
"And you complain of Blanche for being too stout!" groaned out
Timmins.
"Well, well, don't be in a pet," said little Rosa. "The girls won't come to
dinner; but will bring their music afterwards." And she went on with
the list.
"Sir Thomas and Lady Kicklebury, 2. No saying no: we MUST ask
them, Charles. They are rich people, and any room in their house in
Brobdingnag Gardens would swallow up OUR humble cot. But to
people in OUR position in SOCIETY they will be