er _h_'s. 'I don't know w'at women are comin' to nowadays,
w'at wi' one thing an' another, w'en it comes to a chit o' sixteen
talkin' like that about 'er mother bein' an 'umbug, let alone sayin' she
doesn't respect 'er father; an' w'at 'e'd say if 'e 'eard 'er I couldn't
say, I'm sure,' she said, flustered.

'Then don't say it,' observed Sarah lightly, as she threw herself lazily
into one of the luxurious armchairs opposite her mother, and only then
became aware that buried in the depths of another easy-chair was another
figure--that of a man. For a moment she was taken aback, and started in
fright, thinking that it was her father, of whom she might speak
disrespectfully behind his back, but whom she did not dare to abuse to
his face, fearless though she was by nature. However, to her relief, she
saw it was not her father's big, burly form that filled the gold-brocaded
chair, but her brother's tall, slight figure.

'Awfully bad form, Sarah,' he murmured in an effeminate voice, after
which he laid his head back in an attitude of exhaustion against the
chair, and gazed up at the ceiling.

'Yes; I think it must be that 'igh-class, fashionable school that's
taught 'er to speak so of 'er parents, an' not respect any one,' agreed
her mother in querulous accents.

'I didn't mean to speak disrespectfully to you, dear old mother,' said
the girl with a kind of patronising affection.

'I don't know w'at you call it, then, callin' me an 'umbug,' objected Mrs
Clay.

'I was in fun, and you know it _is_ humbug your pretending to read
Gibbon's _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_,' persisted Sarah.

At the title, the youth in the arm-chair roused himself, and said in
quite a different tone, 'Were you reading that, mater? Is it my copy?'

'Well, I can't say I'd really read it, not to understand it; but I saw it
was one o' the books you were studyin', an' I thought I'd take a look at
it just to know a little w'at you were studyin' w'en you got back to
college,' said his mother apologetically.

'That's awfully nice of you, mater; but why didn't you ask me about it?
I'd have told you anything you wanted to know about my work. That's such
a frightfully dry book. I should grind it up for my trip,' replied her
son.

'I don't know that I want to know about "trips;" but I feel I ought to
try an' educate myself now you two are comin' on, so as not to disgrace
you,' began his mother.

But her son, with an impatient movement--which,