sips of coffee. "I've clean neglected that old lady and her brew.
I suppose 'tis dreadful stuff?" he goes on, rather anxious-like, lifting
an eye towards the old Squire.

"I've never had the privilege to taste it," says the Squire.

"Oh, 'tis none so bad," puts in the Major carelessly.

"Why, Dyngwall--how the Dickens alive do _you_ know?"

"I dropped in the other day--in fact, I've called once or twice. The old
lady's monstrous entertaining," answered the Major, pretty pink in the
face.

"O-ho!" Lord William screwed up one eye. "And so, belike, are the eight
handsome daughters? But look ye here, Dyngwall," says he, "I can't have
you skirmishing on your own account in this fashion. If there's a baby
left to be kissed in this town--or anything older, for that matter--we go
shares, my lad."

"You needn't be so cussedly offensive, need you?" says the Major, firing
up, to the astonishment of all.

Lord William looks at him for a moment. "My dear fellow," says he,
"I beg your pardon."

And the Major was mollified at once, the two (as I said) being old
friends.

"But all the same," says his Lordship to himself, "I'd best go call on
this old lady without losing time." So he put it to Squire Martin:
"I've a promise to keep, and tomorrow we shall be busy-all. Couldn't we
start early to-day, and pay Mrs. Lebow a visit on our way to church?"

"You won't get no comfort out of calling," said the Squire: "but let it be
as you please."

So off they set: and as Kitty and her daughters were tying their
bonnet-strings for churchgoing--blue and gold every one of them
(these being the Tory colours), and only Lally thinking to herself that
scarlet and orange might, maybe, suit her complexion better--there came a
knock at the door, and squinting over her blind Kitty caught sight of Lord
William and the Major, with the old Squire behind them, that had never
crossed her doorstep in his life.

She wasn't going to lower her colours, of course. But down she went in
her blue and gold, opened the door, and curtseyed. (Oh! the pink of
manners!) "No inconvenience at all," she said, and if ever a cordial was
needed it would be before sitting out one of old Parson Palsy's
forty-year-old sermons. So out came the famous White Ale, with the
long-stemmed glasses proper to drink it from, and a dish of ratafias to
corroborate the stomach. And behold, all was bowing and compliments and
enmity forgot, till Lord William happened to