he result of it all. You can't eat
anything--you're not taking a mouthful!"

"But, you know, mother, I'm not used to luncheon," he said, cheerfully
enough. "I have to dine at five every day--and I've no time to bother
with luncheon, even if I could eat it."

"Take a glass of port, my lad," the old doctor said. "That will put some
life into you."

"No, thanks," he said, indifferently, "I can't afford to play tricks. I
have to study my throat."

"Why, what better astringent can you have than tannic acid?" the old
gentleman called down the table. "I suppose you drink those washy
abominations that the young men of the day prefer to honest wine; what's
that I hear about lemonade? Lemonade!" he repeated, with disgust.

"It's home-brewed--it's wholesome enough; Miss Burgoyne makes some for
me when she is making it for herself," the young man said; and then he
turned to his mother: "Mother, I wish you would send her something from
the garden--"

"Who, Lionel?"

"Miss Burgoyne--at the theatre, you know. She's very good to me--lends
me her room if I have any swell friends who want to come behind--and
makes me this lemonade, which is better than anything else on a hot
night. Couldn't you send her something from the garden?--not
flowers--she gets too many flowers, and doesn't care for them; but if
you had some early strawberries or something of that kind, she would
take them as a greater compliment, coming from you, than if some idiot
of a young fool spent guineas on them at a florist's. And when are you
coming up to see 'The Squire's Daughter,' Francie? The idea that you
should never have been near the place, when I hear people confessing to
each other that they have been to see it eight and ten, or even a dozen
times!"

"But I am so busy, Lionel!" she said; and then perhaps an echo of
something that had been said in the morning may have recurred to her
mind; for she seemed a trifle confused, and kept her eyes downcast,
while Lionel went on to tell them of what certain friends of his were
going to do at Henley Regatta.

After luncheon they went out into the garden, and took seats in the
shade of the lilac-trees, in the sweet air. Old Mrs. Moore had for
form's sake brought a book with her; but she was not likely to read much
when the pride of her eyes had come down on a visit to her, and was now
talking to her, in his off-hand, light-hearted way. Maurice Mangan had
followed the doctor's example and pulled out his pipe--