turned himself towards the
fire.

"What a fine national family!" said the baron. "And how ashamed I
feel when I bethink myself that only one of them is mine!"

"Dinner is served," said the butler.

"Mrs. Stistick, will you allow me?" said Sir Henry. And then in half
a minute Bertram found himself walking down to dinner with the member
of Parliament. "And we have school accommodation for just one hundred
and fourteen," continued that gentleman on the stairs. "Now, will you
tell me what becomes of the other four hundred and forty-one?"

Bertram was not at that moment in a condition to give him any
information on the subject.

"I can tell you about the one," said the baron, as Sir Henry began
his grace.

"An odd thousand is nothing," said Mr. Stistick, pausing for a second
till the grace was over.

The judge and Mr. Stistick sat at Lady Harcourt's right and left, so
that Bertram was not called upon to say much to her during dinner.
The judge talked incessantly, and so did the member of Parliament,
and so also did the solicitor-general. A party of six is always a
talking party. Men and women are not formed into pairs, and do not
therefore become dumb. Each person's voice makes another person
emulous, and the difficulty felt is not as to what one shall say, but
how one shall get it in. Ten, and twelve, and fourteen are the silent
numbers.

Every now and again Harcourt endeavoured to make Bertram join in the
conversation; and Bertram did make some faint attempts. He essayed to
answer some of Mr. Stistick's very difficult inquiries, and was even
roused to parry some raillery from the judge. But he was not himself;
and Caroline, who could not but watch him narrowly as she sat there
in her silent beauty, saw that he was not so. She arraigned him in
her mind for want of courage; but had he been happy, and noisy, and
light of heart, she would probably have arraigned him for some deeper
sin.

"As long as the matter is left in the hands of the parents, nothing
on earth will be done," said Mr. Stistick.

"That's what I have always said to Lady Brawl," said the judge.

"And it's what I have said to Lord John; and what I intend to say to
him again. Lord John is all very well--"

"Thank you, Stistick. I am glad, at any rate, to get as much as that
from you," said the solicitor.

"Lord John is all very well," continued the member, not altogether
liking the interruption; "but there is only one man in the country
who tho