d Jane, who volunteered her services in helping to wait, that she
might have the delight of hovering about Master Oliver, to whom she
attended exclusively, and would not let Charlotte so much as offer him
the potatoes. And Charlotte was in rather an excited state at the
presence of a Peruvian production, and the flutter of expecting a
letter which would make her repent of the smiles and blushes she had
expended over an elaborate Valentine, admired as an original
production, and valued the more, alas! because poor Marianne had
received none. Charlotte was just beginning to repent of her
ungenerous triumph, and agitation made her waiting less deft and pretty
than usual; but this mattered the less, since to Oliver any attendance
by women-servants was a shock, as were the small table and plain fare;
and he looked round uneasily.

'Here is an old friend, Oliver,' said his mother, taking up a curious
old soup-ladle.

'I see. It will take some time to get up the stock of plate. I shall
give an order as I pass through London. To be engraved with the
Dynevor crest as before, or would you prefer the lozenge, ma'am?'

'Oh, my dear, don't talk of it now! I am only sorry this is nothing
but mutton-broth; but that's what comes of sudden arrivals, Oliver.'

'It shall be remedied at home,' said Oliver, as if he considered
mutton-broth as one degree from famine.

'I know you had it for me,' said Louis. 'If Jane excels in one art
before all others, it is in mutton-broth.'

Oliver darted a glance as if he imagined this compliment to be mere
derision of his mother and Jane.

Things went on in this style all the evening. Oliver had two
ideas--Cheveleigh, and the Equatorial Steam Navigation Company--and on
these he rang the changes.

There was something striking in his devotion of a lifetime to redeem
his mother's fortunes, but the grandeur was not easily visible in the
detail. He came down on Dynevor Terrace as a consequential, moneyed
man, contemptuous of the poverty which he might have alleviated, and
obtruding tardy and oppressive patronage. He rubbed against the new
generation in too many places for charity or gratitude to be easy. He
was utterly at variance with taste, and openly broached unworthy
sentiments and opinions, and his kindness and his displeasure were
equally irksome. If such repugnance to him were felt even by Louis,
the least personally affected, and the best able to sympathize with his
aunt; it was f