rs to it, seemingly," replied Temperance.

"Where made you acquaintance with your Tom Rookwood, Aubrey?" said his
grandmother.

"At the door," said he. "His father is a gentleman of Suffolk, a
younger son of Rookwood of Coldham Hall. He has three sisters,--I saw
not the other two; but I say, that Dorothy's a beauty!"

"Well!" replied Temperance. "Folks say, `As mute as a fish'; but it
seems to me the Golden Fish is well-nigh as talkative as the Angel.
Mind thy ways, Aubrey, and get not thyself into no tanglements with no
Dorothys. It shall be time enough for thee to wed ten years hence."

"And have a care that Mr Rookwood be himself an upright and God-fearing
man," added his Aunt Edith.

"Oh, he's all right!" answered Aubrey, letting Dorothy go by. "He saith
he can hit a swallow flying at eighty paces."

"More shame for him!" cried Edith. "What for should he hit a swallow?"

"He has promised to show me all sorts of things," added Aubrey.

"Have a care," said Lady Louvaine, "that he lead thee not into the
briars, my boy, and there leave thee."

The Monday morning brought a visitor--Mrs Abbott, from the Angel, after
whose stay Edith declared that a day's hard work would have fatigued her
less of the two inflictions. This lady's freedom in asking questions,
without the remotest sense of delicacy, was only to be paralleled by her
readiness to impart information. The party at the White Bear knew
before she went home, that she had recently had her parlour newly hung
with arras, representing the twelve labours of Hercules: that she
intended to have roast veal to supper: that her worsted under-stockings
had cost her four-and-sixpence the pair: that her husband was a very
trying man, and her eldest son the cleverest youth in Westminster.

"Worsted stockings four-and-sixpence!" cried Temperance. "What a sinful
price to pay! And I declare if they ask not three shillings and
fourpence for a quarter of veal! Why, I mind the time when in Keswick
it was but sixteen pence. Truly, if things wax higher in price than now
they are, it shall be an hard matter to live. This very morrow was I
asked a shilling for a calf's head of the butcher, and eightpence for a
lemon of the costard-monger, whereat I promise you I fumed a bit; but
when it came to threepence apiece for chickens,--Lancaster and Derby!
It shall cost us here ever so much more to live."

"It shall not," said Hans. "There be five acres of garden, and save