njoyment. We
really _are_ very comfortable.

"Well," say I, nothing loath, for I have always dearly loved the sound
of my own voice, "do you see that man on the hearth-rug?--do not look at
him this very minute, or he will know that we are speaking of him. I
cannot imagine why father has asked him here to-night--he wants to marry
Barbara; he has never said it, but I know he does: the boys--we all,
indeed--call him _Toothless Jack_! he is not old _really_, I
suppose--not more than fifty, that is; but for Barbara!--"

I think that Sir Roger is beginning to find me rather tiresome:
evidently he is not listening: he has even turned away his head.

There is a movement among the guests, the first detachment are bidding
good-night, the rest speedily do the like. Father follows his favorite
miss into the hall, cloaks her with gallant care, and through the door I
hear him playfully firing off parting jests at her as she drives away.
Then he returns to the drawing-room. Sir Roger has gone to put on his
smoking-coat, I suppose. Father is alone with his wife and his two
lovely daughters. We make a faint movement toward effacing ourselves,
but our steps are speedily checked.

"Barbara! Nancy!"

"Yes, father" (in a couple of very small voices).

"May I ask what induced you to keep my guests waiting half an hour for
their dinner to-night?"

No manner of answer. _How_ hooked his nose looks! how fearfully like a
hawk he has grown all in a minute!

"When you have houses of your own," he continues with iced politeness,
"you may of course treat your visitors to what vagaries you please, but
as long as you deign to honor _my_ roof with your presence, you will be
good enough to behave to my guests with decent civility, do you hear?"

"Well, Roger, how is the glass? up or down? What is it doing? Are we to
have a fine day to-morrow?"

For Roger apparently has got quickly into his smoking-coat: at least he
is here: he has heard all. Barbara and I _crawl_ away with no more
spring or backbone in us than a couple of torpid, wintery flies.

Five minutes later, "Do you wonder that we hate him?" cry I, with
flaming cheeks, holding a japanned candlestick in one hand, and Sir
Roger's right hand in the other.

"I do not care if he _does_ hear me!--yes, I do, though" (giving a great
jump as a door bangs close to me).

Sir Roger is looking down at me with an expression of most thorough
discomfiture and silent pain in his face.

"He did no