u to be with your father a little before dinner."

Then, when they were in the brougham together, he began a course of
very plain instructions. "Look here, dear; you had better get him to
talk to you before dinner. I dare say Mrs. Roby will be there, and
I will get her on one side. At any rate you can manage it because
we shall be early, and I'll take up a book while you are talking to
him."

"What do you wish me to say to him, Ferdinand?"

"I have been thinking of your own proposal, and I am quite sure that
we had better join him in the Square. The thing is, I am in a little
mess about the rooms, and can't stay on without paying very dearly
for them."

"I thought you had paid for them."

"Well;--yes; in one sense I had; but you don't understand about
business. You had better not interrupt me now as I have got a good
deal to say before we get to the Square. It will suit me to give up
the rooms. I don't like them, and they are very dear. As you yourself
said, it will be a capital thing for us to go and stay with your
father."

"I meant only for a visit."

"It will be for a visit,--and we'll make it a long visit." It was odd
that the man should have been so devoid of right feeling himself as
not to have known that the ideas which he expressed were revolting!
"You can sound him. Begin by saying that you are afraid he is
desolate. He told me himself that he was desolate, and you can refer
to that. Then tell him that we are both of us prepared to do anything
that we can to relieve him. Put your arm over him, and kiss him, and
all that sort of thing." She shrunk from him into the corner of the
brougham, and yet he did not perceive it. "Then say that you think
he would be happier if we were to join him here for a time. You
can make him understand that there would be no difficulty about
the apartments. But don't say it all in a set speech, as though
it were prepared,--though of course you can let him know that you
have suggested it to me and that I am willing. Be sure to let him
understand that the idea began with you."

"But it did not."

"You proposed to go and stay with him. Tell him just that. And you
should explain to him that he can dine at the club just as much as he
likes. When you were alone with him here, of course he had to come
home; but he needn't do that now unless he chooses. Of course the
brougham would be my affair. And if he should say anything about
sharing the house expenses, you can tell him th