Lady Tilchester is so kind, and makes one feel perfectly at home.  A number of people were assembled upon the croquet lawn and in the great tent playing bridge when we arrived, and as no one seems to introduce any one it has taken me two whole days to find out people’s names.  Some of them, indeed, I have not grasped yet!  It does seem a strange custom.  Either it is because every one in this set is supposed to be acquainted with the other, and strangers are things that do not count, or that meeting under one roof constitutes an introduction.  I have not yet found out which it is.

Anyway, it makes things dull at first.  Augustus found it “deuced unpleasant,” he told me, as, instead of remaining quiet until he knew his ground, he proceeded to commit a series of betises.

The first afternoon I subsided into a low chair, and a gruff-looking man handed me some tea, and patted and talked to a bob-tailed sheep-dog that was near.

I don’t know if he expected me to answer for the dog, and so make a conversation.  He was disappointed, however, if so, as I remained silent.  Presently I discovered he was our host.

Lady Tilchester was busy being gushed at by Augustus.  A little woman with light hair came and sat down at the other side of me.  She looks like a young, fluffy chicken, and has a lisp and an infantile voice, and wears numbers of trinkets, and her name, “Babykins,” spelled in a brooch of diamonds.  I should not like to be called “Babykins,” and I wonder why one should want strangers to read one’s name printed upon one’s chest.

Everything of hers is marked with that.  Chain bracelets with “Babykins” in sapphires and diamonds.  On her handkerchief, which she plays with, “Babykins” again stares at you.  Even the corner of her chemise, which shows through her transparent blouse, has “Babykins” embroidered on it.  It is no wonder even the young men never call her anything else.

You have the first impression that you are talking to a child, but afterwards you are surprised to find what a lot of grown-up, scandalous things she has said.

She was very agreeable to me, and gave me to understand she was so interested to make my acquaintance, as Lady Tilchester had told her so much about me.

“You come from Yorkshire, don’t you?” she said; “and your husband has that wonderful breed of black pigs, hasn’t he?”

“No,” I said, “we live only sixteen miles off.”

“Oh, of course!  How stupid of me!  You are quite another person, I see,” and she laughed.  “But the pig farmers are coming, and I am so anxious to meet them, as I have a perfect mania for piglets myself.  I want to start a new sort, and I hoped you could tell me about them.”

“I am so sorry,” I said.  “I wish I could help you, but I do not believe—­except casually in the village—­that I have ever seen a pig; they must be delightful companions.”

“Yes, indeed!  I have large families of the fat white ones, and really the babies are most engaging, and the very image of my step-children.  I always tell my husband it seems like eating Alice or Laura when he insists upon having suckling-pig for luncheon.  I suppose one would not mind eating one’s step-children, though—­would one?  What do you think?”