the house is so romantic!"

"The situation of the host is exceedingly so," said Mr. Fellingham; "but
I think his wine the most unromantic liquid I have ever tasted."

"It must be that!" cried Van Diemen, puzzled by novel pains in the head.
"Old Martin woke up a little like his old self after dinner."

"He drank sparingly," said Mr. Fellingham.

"I am sure you were satirical last night," Annette said reproachfully.

"On the contrary, I told him I thought he was in a romantic situation."

"But I have had a French mademoiselle for my governess and an Oxford
gentleman for my tutor; and I know you accepted French and English from
Mr. Tinman and his sister that I should not have approved."

"Netty," said Van Diemen, "has had the best instruction money could
procure; and if she says you were satirical, you may depend on it you
were."

"Oh, in that case, of course!" Mr. Fellingham rejoined. "Who could help
it?"

He thought himself warranted in giving the rein to his wicked satirical
spirit, and talked lightly of the accidental character of the letter H in
Tinman's pronunciation; of how, like somebody else's hat in a high wind,
it descended on somebody else's head, and of how his words walked about
asking one another who they were and what they were doing, danced
together madly, snapping their fingers at signification; and so forth. He
was flippant.

Annette glanced at her father, and dropped her eyelids.

Mr. Fellingham perceived that he was enjoined to be on his guard.

He went one step farther in his fun; upon which Van Diemen said, with a
frown, "If you please!"

Nothing could withstand that.

"Hang old Mart Tinman's wine!" Van Diemen burst out in the dead pause.
"My head's a bullet. I'm in a shocking bad temper. I can hardly see. I'm
bilious."

Mr. Fellingham counselled his lying down for an hour, and he went
grumbling, complaining of Mart Tinman's incredulity about the towering
beauty of a place in Australia called Gippsland.

Annette confided to Mr. Fellingham, as soon as they were alone, the
chivalrous nature of her father in his friendships, and his indisposition
to hear a satirical remark upon his old schoolmate, the moment he
understood it to be satire.

Fellingham pleaded: "The man's a perfect burlesque. He's as distinctly
made to be laughed at as a mask in a pantomime."

"Papa will not think so," said Annette; "and papa has been told that he
is not to be laughed at as a man of business."

"Do