ou, young
woman, it is hard on a man who has been at work all day to come home
and find a dark house and nobody to speak to.'

Mary looked melancholy at this approach to reproof, and Tom observed in
an undertone,

'Never mind, Mary, it is only to give papa the opportunity of improving
his pupil, while you exchange confidence with your bosom friend. I
shall be gone in another month, and there will be nothing to prevent
the perfect fusion of families.'

No one was sorry that the evening here came to an end.

'I hope,' said Dr. May at the Sunday's dinner, 'that the cricket match
has not done for that boy; I did not see him among the boys.'

'No,' said Mary, 'but he has met with some accident, and has the most
terrible bruised face. Ave can't make out how he did it. Do you know,
Aubrey?'

The Doctor and his two sons burst out laughing.

'I thought,' said Ethel, rather grieved, 'that those things had gone
out of fashion.'

'So Ethel's protege, or prodigy, which is it?' said Tom, 'is turning
out a muscular Christian on her hands.'

'Is a muscular Christian one who has muscles, or one who trusts in
muscles?' asked Ethel.

'Or a better cricketer than an Etonian?' added the Doctor.

Tom and Aubrey returned demonstrations that Eton's glory was
untarnished, and the defeat solely owing to 'such a set of sticks.'

'Aubrey,' said Ethel, in their first private moment, 'was this a fight
in a good cause? for if so, I will come down with you and see him.'

Aubrey made a face of dissuasion, ending in a whistle.

'Do at least tell me it is nothing I should be sorry for,' she said
anxiously.

He screwed his face into an intended likeness of Ethel's imitation of
an orchis, winked one eye, and looked comical.

'I see it can't be really bad,' said Ethel, 'so I will rest on your
assurance, and ask no indiscreet questions.'

'You didn't see, then?' said Aubrey, aggrieved at the failure of his
imitation. 'You don't remember the beauty he met at Coombe?'

'Beauty! None but Mab.'

'Well, they found it out and chaffed him. Fielder said he would cut
out as good a face out of an old knob of apple wood, and the doctor in
petticoats came up again; he got into one of his rages, and they had no
end of a shindy, better than any, they say, since Lake and Benson
fifteen years ago; but Ward was in too great a passion, or he would
have done for Fielder long before old Hoxton was seen mooning that way.
So you see, if any of the fe