Courthope saw the smile in Madge’s eyes was bent upon him as she said softly, ’You won’t forget that you have Lady Catherine de Bourg at your right hand to look after.  I can see that brother Peter has got his eye upon her, and I don’t know how she would take the “seraphim” story.’

‘If she begins any of her dignified impertinence here,’ he answered, ’I intend to steer her into a conversation with Charlotte, Lady G——.’

Courthope had a turkey to carve.  He was fain to turn from the guests to ask advice as to its anatomy of Madge, who was carving a ham and assuring Mr. Woodhouse that it was ’thrice baked, exactly as Serle would have done it.’

‘Stupid!—­it was apples that were baked,’ whispered Eliz.

‘You see,’ said Madge, when she had told him how to begin upon the turkey, ’we wondered very much what a dinner of “two full courses” might be, and where the “corner dishes” were to be set.  We did not quite know—­do you?’

‘You must not have asides that are not about the people,’ cried Eliz intensely.  ’Catherine Moreland’s mother is talking common sense to General Tilney and Sir Walter Eliot, and there’ll be no end of a row in a minute if you don’t divert their attention.’

Eliz had more than once to call the other two to account for talking privately adown the long table.

‘What a magnificent ham!’ he exclaimed.  ‘Do you keep pigs?’

Madge had a frank way of giving family details.  ’It was once a dear little pig, and we wanted to teach it to take exercise by running after us when we went out, but the stepmother, like Bunyan, “penned it”—­

     ’"Until at last it came to be,
     For length and breadth, the bigness which you see."’

More than once he saw Madge’s quick wit twinkle through her booklore.  When he was looking ruefully at a turkey by no means neatly carved, she gave the comforting suggestion, ’"’Tis impious in a good man to be sad."’

‘I thought it one of the evidences of piety.’

’It is true that he was “Young” who said it, but so are we; let us believe it fervently.’

When Madge swept across the drawing-room, with her amber skirts trailing, and Eliz had been wheeled in, they received the after-dinner visitors.  Courthope could almost see the room filled with the quaint creations to whom they were both bowing and talking incessantly.

‘Mr. Courthope—­Miss Jane Fairfax—­I believe you have met before.’  Madge’s voice dropped in a well-feigned absorption in her next guest; but she soon found time again to whisper to him a long speech which Miss Bates had made to Eliz.  Soon afterwards she came flying to him in the utmost delight to repeat what she called a “lovely sneap” which Lady G——­ had given to Mrs. Elton; nor did she forget to tell him that Emma Woodhouse was explaining to the Portuguese nun her reasons for deciding never to marry.  ’Out of sheer astonishment she appears to become quite tranquillised,’ said Madge, as if relating an important fact.