This is probably one of the sketches for a series of paintings about a 'Happy Marriage' which Hogarth planned but did not finish. This scene may show a young country squire's wife being fitted for the ball-gown she is to wear in the following scene, The Dance.

 

Her husband sits in the background, wearing a voluminous dressing gown. He is playing with his youngest child, held up by a doting nurse. The boy in the centre plays at soldiers, while the little girl to the right pours milk into the staymaker's hat for the kitten under the table.