bonnet, and sat as strangely
silent. In vain Mrs. Sumfit asked her; "Shall it be tea, dear, and a
little cold meat?" The two dumb figures were separately interrogated,
but they had no answer.

"Come! brother Tony?" the farmer tried to rally him.

Dahlia was knitting some article of feminine gear. Robert stood by the
musk-pots at the window, looking at Rhoda fixedly. Of this gaze she
became conscious, and glanced from him to the clock.

"It's late," she said, rising.

"But you're empty, my dear. And to think o' going to bed without a
dinner, or your tea, and no supper! You'll never say prayers, if you
do," said Mrs. Sumfit.

The remark engendered a notion in the farmer's head, that Anthony
promised to be particularly prayerless.

"You've been and spent a night at the young squire's, I hear, brother
Tony. All right and well. No complaints on my part, I do assure ye. If
you're mixed up with that family, I won't bring it in you're anyways
mixed up with this family; not so as to clash, do you see. Only, man,
now you are here, a word'd be civil, if you don't want a doctor."

"I was right," murmured Mrs. Sumfit. "At the funeral, he was; and Lord
be thanked! I thought my eyes was failin'. Mas' Gammon, you'd ha' lost
no character by sidin' wi' me."

"Here's Dahlia, too," said the farmer. "Brother Tony, don't you see her?
She's beginning to be recognizable, if her hair'd grow a bit faster.
She's...well, there she is."

A quavering, tiny voice, that came from Anthony, said: "How d' ye
do--how d' ye do;" sounding like the first effort of a fife. But Anthony
did not cast eye on Dahlia.

"Will you eat, man?--will you smoke a pipe?--won't you talk a
word?--will you go to bed?"

These several questions, coming between pauses, elicited nothing from
the staring oldman.

"Is there a matter wrong at the Bank?" the farmer called out, and
Anthony jumped in a heap.

"Eh?" persisted the farmer.

Rhoda interposed: "Uncle is tired; he is unwell. Tomorrow he will talk
to you."

"No, but is there anything wrong up there, though?" the farmer asked
with eager curiosity, and a fresh smile at the thought that those
Banks and city folk were mortal, and could upset, notwithstanding their
crashing wheels. "Brother Tony, you speak out; has anybody been and
broke? Never mind a blow, so long, o' course, as they haven't swallowed
your money. How is it? Why, I never saw such a sight as you. You come
down from London; you play hide and se