?'

Mr Meagles, fidgety under the question, replied, 'I hope not, ma'am. I
hope they will manage their little income.'

'Oh! my dearest Meagles!' returned the lady, tapping him on the arm with
the green fan and then adroitly interposing it between a yawn and
the company, 'how can you, as a man of the world and one of the most
business-like of human beings--for you know you are business-like, and a
great deal too much for us who are not--'

(Which went to the former purpose, by making Mr Meagles out to be an
artful schemer.)

'--How can you talk about their managing their little means? My poor
dear fellow! The idea of his managing hundreds! And the sweet pretty
creature too. The notion of her managing! Papa Meagles! Don't!'

'Well, ma'am,' said Mr Meagles, gravely, 'I am sorry to admit, then,
that Henry certainly does anticipate his means.'

'My dear good man--I use no ceremony with you, because we are a kind of
relations;--positively, Mama Meagles,' exclaimed Mrs Gowan cheerfully,
as if the absurd coincidence then flashed upon her for the first time,
'a kind of relations! My dear good man, in this world none of us can
have everything our own way.'

This again went to the former point, and showed Mr Meagles with all good
breeding that, so far, he had been brilliantly successful in his deep
designs. Mrs Gowan thought the hit so good a one, that she dwelt upon
it; repeating 'Not everything. No, no; in this world we must not expect
everything, Papa Meagles.'

'And may I ask, ma'am,' retorted Mr Meagles, a little heightened in
colour, 'who does expect everything?'

'Oh, nobody, nobody!' said Mrs Gowan. 'I was going to say--but you put
me out. You interrupting Papa, what was I going to say?'

Drooping her large green fan, she looked musingly at Mr Meagles while
she thought about it; a performance not tending to the cooling of that
gentleman's rather heated spirits.

'Ah! Yes, to be sure!' said Mrs Gowan. 'You must remember that my poor
fellow has always been accustomed to expectations. They may have been
realised, or they may not have been realised--'

'Let us say, then, may not have been realised,' observed Mr Meagles.

The Dowager for a moment gave him an angry look; but tossed it off with
her head and her fan, and pursued the tenor of her way in her former
manner.

'It makes no difference. My poor fellow has been accustomed to that
sort of thing, and of course you knew it, and were prepared for the
conseq