'Well, it don't much matter.

He don't care for an old 'ooman like me, I dare say.' 'I assure you, ma'am,' said Mr.Pickwick, grasping the old lady's hand, and speaking so loud that the exertion imparted a crimson hue to his benevolent countenance--'I assure you, ma'am, that nothing delights me more than to see a lady of your time of life heading so fine a family, and looking so young and well.' 'Ah!' said the old lady, after a short pause: 'it's all very fine, I dare say; but I can't hear him.' 'Grandma's rather put out now,' said Miss Isabella Wardle, in a low tone; 'but she'll talk to you presently.' Mr.Pickwick nodded his readiness to humour the infirmities of age, and entered into a general conversation with the other members of the circle.
'Delightful situation this,' said Mr.Pickwick.
'Delightful!' echoed Messrs.

Snodgrass, Tupman, and Winkle.
'Well, I think it is,' said Mr.Wardle.
'There ain't a better spot o' ground in all Kent, sir,' said the hard-headed man with the pippin--face; 'there ain't indeed, sir--I'm sure there ain't, Sir.' The hard-headed man looked triumphantly round, as if he had been very much contradicted by somebody, but had got the better of him at last.
'There ain't a better spot o' ground in all Kent,' said the hard-headed man again, after a pause.
''Cept Mullins's Meadows,' observed the fat man solemnly.

'Mullins's Meadows!' ejaculated the other, with profound contempt.
'Ah, Mullins's Meadows,' repeated the fat man.
'Reg'lar good land that,' interposed another fat man.
'And so it is, sure-ly,' said a third fat man.
'Everybody knows that,' said the corpulent host.
The hard-headed man looked dubiously round, but finding himself in a minority, assumed a compassionate air and said no more.

'What are they talking about ?' inquired the old lady of one of her granddaughters, in a very audible voice; for, like many deaf people, she never seemed to calculate on the possibility of other persons hearing what she said herself.
'About the land, grandma.' 'What about the land ?--Nothing the matter, is there ?' 'No, no.