!' said Richard, rather indignantly.

'No, in the pathetic line,' said Ethel; 'but that requires some
self-denial.'

'Our tongues don't lose their venom, you see, Harry,' put in the Doctor.

'No indeed, papa,' said Ethel, really anxious to guard her brothers. 'I
was very sorry for her at first, and perhaps I pity her more now than
even then. I was taken with her pale face and dark eyes, and I believe
she was a good wife, and really concerned for her husband; but I can't
help seeing that she knows her grief is an attraction.'

'To simple parsons,' muttered Tom along the tube of his microscope.

'The sound of her voice showed her to be full of pretension,' said
Blanche. 'Besides, Mrs. Ledwich's trumpeting would fix my opinion in a
moment.'

'Just so,' observed the Doctor.

'No, papa,' said Ethel, 'I was really pleased and touched in spite of
Mrs. Ledwich's devotion to her, till I found out a certain manoeuvring
to put herself in the foreground, and not let her sorrow hinder her
from any enjoyment or display.'

'She can't bear any one to do what she does not.'

'What! Mary's mouth open against her too?' cried Dr. May.

'Well, papa,' insisted Mary, 'nobody wanted her to insist on taking the
harmonium at Bankside last Sunday, just because Averil had a cold in
her head; and she played so fast, that every one was put out, and then
said she would come to the practice that they might understand one
another. She is not even in the Bankside district, so it is no
business of hers.'

'There, Richard, her favours are equally distributed,' said Aubrey,
'but if she would take that harmonium altogether, one would not
mind--it makes Henry Ward as sulky as a bear to have his sister going
out all the evening, and he visits it on Leonard. I dare say if she
stayed at home he would not have been such a brute about the rifle.'

'I should not wonder,' said Dr. May. 'I sometimes doubt if home is
sweetened to my friend Henry.'

'O, papa!' cried Mary, bristling up, 'Ave is very hard worked, and she
gives up everything in the world but her church music, and that is her
great duty and delight.'

'Miss Ward's music must be a sore trial to the Pug,' said Tom, 'will it
be at this affair at Abbotstoke?'

'That's the question,' said Ethel. 'It never goes out, yet is to be
met everywhere, just over-persuaded at the last moment. Now Flora, you
will see, will think it absolutely improper to ask her; and she will be
greatly disappo