row morning."

"Then all I've got to say," said Miss Matilda, sharply, "is this--"

"Yelp! yelp! yelp!"--a succession of wild shrieks from beneath the
antimacassar, out of one side of which lay a thin black tail, in very
close proximity to Fin's pretty little foot, and in an instant Aunt
Matty was down upon her knees, talking to and caressing the dog.

"Er-rum!" went Sir Hampton, slowly crossing the hall to his library,
followed by Lady Rea; and directly after Miss Matilda hurried away, with
her pet in her arms.

"Now, Fin, that was cruel. I saw you tread on Pip's tail," said Tiny.

"Doing evil that good might come," said Fin, defiantly. "Look here,
Tiny--pets were anciently offered up to save a row. If I hadn't made
him squeal, there would have been pa storming, Aunt Matty going into
hysterics, and ma worried to death; so that it was like the old nursery
rhyme--"

"I trod sharp on the little dog's tail;
The dog began to shriek and wail,
And poor Aunty Matty turned mighty pale:
It stopped papa from blowing a gale;
And that's the end of my little tale."

"Er-rum!" was heard from across the hall.

"There's daddy going to lecture me; and look here, Tiny, Edward will
come in directly to clear the cloth. Now, then, here's a penny; let's
toss. Heads or tails, who wins."

"Wins what?"

"Mr Richard Trevor, and Penreife. Now then, cry!"

"No," said Tiny, "I'll laugh instead."

And she kissed her sister on the cheek.

Volume 1, Chapter II.

IN PALL MALL.

"Voila!--the pilot-fish and the shark!"

The words were spoken by an individual idly smoking a cigar on the steps
of that gloomy-looking pile in Pall Mall known as the Peripatetics. He
was the being that, go where he would, uneducated people would set down
as belonging to the division Swell; for there was _ton_ and aristocrat
in the fit of his clothes and every curve of his body. Women would have
called his black moustache and beard handsome, and spoken of his
piercing eyes, high white forehead, and wonderful complexion; but Podger
Pratt--that is to say, Frank Pratt--said more than once he had never
seen a barber's dummy that was his equal. He said it in a very solemn
way; and when it came to the ears of the gentleman in question, he
denounced Podger Pratt as a disgusting little cad, and the next time
they met at the club Captain Vanleigh asked Pratt what he meant by it.

"What did I mean?" said Pratt, in a serious, puzzled tone of voice