ery sure whether they were meant to puzzle or to persuade him.

"So then he is to be an honored guest, George, eh?"

He smiled a gentle assent, and she went on: "And we are to treat him to
that wonderful Rhine wine Sir Marcus sent you to cure your ague. And
the very thought of drinking anything so costly actually brought on a
shivering attack."

"Have we any of it left?"

"Two bottles, if those uncouth little flattened flasks can be called
bottles. And since you are resolved he is to be entertained like a
'Prince Russe,' I 'll actually treat him to a dish of maccaroni of my
own invention. You remember, George, Mrs. Monkton was going to withdraw
her subscription from the Church when she ate of it, and remained a firm
Protestant."

"Julia, Julia!" said he, in a half-reproving tone.

"I am simply citing an historical fact, but you'll provoke me to say
much worse if you stand there with that censorial face. As if I did
n't know how wrong it was to speak lightly of a lady who subscribes two
hundred francs a year."

"There are very few who do so," said he, with a sigh.

"My poor brother," said she, caressingly, "it is a very hard case to be
so poor, and we with such refined tastes and such really nice instincts;
we, who would like a pretty house, and a pretty garden, and a pretty
little equipage, and who would give pretty little dinners, with the very
neatest cut glass and china, and be, all the time, so cultivated and so
simple, so elevated in tone and so humble in spirit. There, go away, and
look after some fruit--do something, and don't stand there provoking me
to talk nonsense. That solemn look made me ten times more silly than I
ever intended to be."

"I 'm sure," said L'Estrange, thoughtfully, "he has something to tell me
of the coal-mine."

"Ah, if I thought that, George? If I thought he brought us tidings of
a great 'dividend'--is n't that the name for the thing the people
always share amongst themselves, out of somebody else's money? So I have
shocked you, at last, into running away; and now for the cares of the
household."

Now, though she liked to quiz her brother about his love of hospitality
and the almost reckless way in which he would spend money to entertain a
guest, it was one of her especial delights to play hostess, and receive
guests with whatever display their narrow fortune permitted. Nor did she
spare any pains she could bestow in preparing to welcome Mr. Cutbill,
and her day was busily pa