He felt it not inappropriate to ask if he had entered fairyland.

Eliz would have answered him with fantastic affirmative, but the elder sister, like a sensible child who knew better how to arrange the game, interposed.
'I'll explain it to you.

Eliz and I are giving a party to-night.

There hasn't been any company in the house since father died four years ago, and we know he wouldn't like us to be dull, so when our stepmother went out, and sent word that she couldn't come back to-night, we decided to have a grand party.

There are only to be play-people, you know; all the people in Miss Austen's books are coming, and the nice ones out of _Sir Charles Grandison_.' She paused to see if he understood.
'Are the _Mysteries of Udolpho_ invited ?' he asked.
'No, the others we just chose here and there, because we liked them--Evelina, although she was rather silly and we told her that we couldn't have Lord Ormond, and Miss Matty and Brother Peter out of _Cranford_, and Moses Wakefield, because we liked him best of the family, and the Portuguese nun who wrote the letters.