the sole letter. It had come
by the second post. The contents of the first post had been perused in
bed. While Mary was scraping porridge off the younger George's bib with
a spoon, and wiping porridge out of his eyes with a serviette, George
the elder gave just a glance at the letter.

"So he has written after all!" said George, in a voice that tried to be
nonchalant.

"Who?" asked Mary, although she had already seen the envelope, and knew
exactly what George meant. And her voice also was unnatural in its
attempted casualness.

"The old cock," said George, beginning to serve bacon.

"Oh!" said Mary, coming to her chair, and beginning to dispense tea.

She was dying to open the letter, yet she poured out the tea with
superhuman leisureliness, and then indicated to Georgie exactly where to
search for bits of porridge on his big plate, while George with a great
appearance of calm unfolded a newspaper. Then at length she did open the
letter. Having read it, she put her lips tighter together, nodded, and
passed the letter to George. And George read:

"DEAR MARY,--I cannot accede to your request.--Your affectionate uncle,
SAMUEL PEEL.

"_P.S._--The expenses connected with my County Council election will be
terrible. S.P."

George lifted his eyebrows, as if to indicate that in his opinion there
was no accounting for the wild stupidity of human nature, and that he as
a philosopher refused to be startled by anything whatever.

"Curt!" he muttered coldly.

Mary uneasily laughed.

"What shall you do?" she inquired.

"Without!" replied George, with a curtness that equalled Mary's uncle's.

"And what about the rent?"

"The rent will have to wait."

A brave young man! Nevertheless he saw in that moment chasms at his
feet--chasms in which he and his wife and child and his brilliant
prospects might be swallowed up. He changed the subject.

"You didn't see this cutting," he said, and passed a slip from a
newspaper gummed to a piece of green paper.

George, in his quality of rising young sculptor, received Press cuttings
from an agency. This one was from a somewhat vulgar Society journal, and
it gave, in two paragraphs, an account of the recent festivity at
George's studio. It finished with the words: "Heidsieck flowed freely."
He could not guess who had written it. No! It was not in the nicest
taste, but it furnished indubitable proof that George was still rising,
that he was a figure in the world. "What a rag!" h