Pride and Prejudice

Their party in the dining-room was large, for almost all the Lucases came to meet Maria and hear the news: and various were the subjects which occupied them:

Lady Lucas was enquiring of Maria, across the table, after the welfare and poultry of her eldest daughter;

Mrs. Bennet was doubly engaged, on one hand collecting an account of the present fashions from Jane, who sat some way below her, and, on the other, retailing them all to the younger Miss Lucases;

and Lydia, in a voice rather louder than any other person’s, was enumerating the various pleasures of the morning to anybody who would hear her.