The cards for dinner having been issued,it became the duty of Mrs.
Timmins to make further arrangements respecting the invitations to the tea-party which was to follow the more substantial meal.
These arrangements are difficult,as any lady knows who is in the habit of entertaining her friends.There are--People who are offended if you ask them to tea whilst others have been asked to dinner;People who are offended if you ask them to tea at all;and cry out furiously,"Good heavens!Jane my love,why do these Timminses suppose that I am to leave my dinner-table to attend their -----soiree?"(the dear reader may fill up the -----to any strength,according to his liking)--or,"Upon my word,William my dear,it is too much to ask us to pay twelve shillings for a brougham,and to spend I don't know how much in gloves,just to make our curtsies in Mrs.Timmins's little drawing-room."Mrs.Moser made the latter remark about the Timmins affair,while the former was uttered by Mr.Grumpley,barrister-at-law,to his lady,in Gloucester Place.
That there are people who are offended if you don't ask them at all,is a point which I suppose nobody will question.Timmins's earliest friend in life was Simmins,whose wife and family have taken a cottage at Mortlake for the season.
"We can't ask them to come out of the country,"Rosa said to her Fitzroy--(between ourselves,she was delighted that Mrs.Simmins was out of the way,and was as jealous of her as every well-regulated woman should be of her husband's female friends)--"we can't ask them to come so far for the evening.""Why,no,certainly."said Fitzroy,who has himself no very great opinion of a tea-party;and so the Simminses were cut out of the list.