Dinner with the Upper Class — Evelina, Or, the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World

September 19 Mrs. Beaumont's dinner cards bring Evelina and Mrs. Selwyn to Clifton Hill. Selwyn sketches their hostess as a Court Calendar bigot who treats birth and virtue as one, practices condescension as high virtue, and loads Selwyn with favors to cancel an old Southampton debt once she learned Selwyn was not quality. Beaumont grills Evelina about northern Anvilles and Lincolnshire names until family ignorance embarrasses her.

Louisa languishes; Merton, Lovel, and Coverley trade phaeton wagers and sauce talk while Lord Orville alone introduces Evelina to his sister, who half-rises and whispers onward with Merton. Orville, hurt, attends Evelina exclusively until dinner. Coverley's overturned carriage spawns a thousand-pound driving bet Mrs. Selwyn mocks as employment fit only for men already unfit for better. Orville brokers a safer substitute; Coverley calls him careful as an old woman until Selwyn jokes his friends are not tired of him yet.

After dinner the ladies are insipid until tea revives the men. Evelina, as Lovel says, is Nobody: Merton and Coverley ignore her while Orville draws a chair beside her, asks after her health, praises Mrs. Mirvan, and shares silent disgust at gluttonous talk. The wager debate turns farcical: Horace odes, bow practice, straws, until Orville proposes the thousand pounds go to whoever brings the worthiest person to share it. Shame silences the room; Evelina's eyes fill.

She laments her foolish vote when Orville reassures her that adapting to company differs from preaching superiority. Mrs. Selwyn accepts a week at Clifton to discharge Beaumont's debt, though Evelina dreads being neglected by all but Orville and learns how birth and fortune gate respect she lacks without pedigree.