elf in this
respect alone.

'Hah! phew--you're very hot in here!' he remarked, as an agreeable
opening--he felt himself rich enough to be able to remark on other
people's atmospheres; but Cuthbert expressed a _sotto voce_ wish that
his uncle were exposed to an even higher temperature.

'We can't all live in country houses, Solomon,' said his sister, 'and
a small room soon gets warm to any one coming in from the cold air.'

'Warm!' said Mr. Lightowler, with a snort; 'I should think you must
all of you be fired like a set of pots! I don't care where I sit, so
long as I'm well away from the fire. I'll come by you, Trixie,
eh--you'll take care of your uncle, won't you?'

Trixie was a handsome girl of about eighteen, with abundant auburn
hair, which was never quite in good order, and pretty hands of which
most girls would have been more careful; she had developed a limp
taste for art of late, finding drawing outlines at an art school less
irksome than assisting in the housekeeping at home. Uncle Solomon
always alarmed her because she never knew what he would say next; but
as it was a family rule to be civil to him, she made room for him with
great apparent alacrity.

'And how are you all, boys and girls, eh?' asked Uncle Solomon, when
he was comfortably seated; 'Mark, you've got fuller in the waist of
late; you don't take 'alf enough exercise. Cuthbert, lad, you're
looking very sallow under the eyes--smoking and late hours, _that's_
the way with all the young men nowadays! Why don't you talk to him,
eh, Matthew? I should if he was a boy o' mine. Well, Martha, has any
nice young man asked you to name a day yet?--he's a long time coming
forward, Martha, that nice young man; why, let me see, Jane, she must
be getting on now for--she was born in the year fifty-four, was
it?--four it was; it was in the war time, I remember, and you wanted
her christened Alma, but I said an uncommon name is all very well if
she grows up good-looking, but if she's plain it only sounds
ridiklous; so, very fortunately as things turn out, you had her
christened Martha. There's nothing to bite your lips over, my dear; no
one blames you for it, we can't be all born 'andsome. It's Trixie here
who gets all the love-letters, isn't it, Trixie?--ah, I _thought_ I
should see a blush if I looked! Who is it now, Trixie, and where do we
meet him, and when is the wedding? Come, tell your old uncle.'

'Don't put such nonsense into the child's head, Solomon,