ble
had been supplied by another man,--by a young man whom he wished to
regard as subject to himself, but who would not be subject, and at
whom he was beginning to look with very unfavourable eyes. "A present
to the girls? I tell you I won't have such presents. And if it was
so, I think he has been very impertinent,--very impertinent indeed.
I shall tell him so,--and I shall insist on paying for the wine. And
I must say, you ought not to have taken it."

"Oh, dear T., I have been working so hard all night; and I do think
you ought to let me go to sleep now, instead of scolding me."

On the following morning the party was of course discussed in the
Tappitt family under various circumstances. At the breakfast-table
Mrs. Rowan, with her son and daughter, were present; and then a song
of triumph was sung. Everything had gone off with honour and glory,
and the brewery had been immortalized for years to come. Mrs. Butler
Cornbury's praises were spoken,--with some little drawback of a sneer
on them, because "she had made such a fuss with that girl Rachel
Ray;" and then the girls had told of their partners, and Luke had
declared it all to have been superb. But when the Rowans' backs were
turned, and the Tappitts were alone together, others besides old
Tappitt himself had words to say in dispraise of Luke. Mrs. Tappitt
had been much inclined to make little of her husband's objections
to the young man while she hoped that he might possibly become her
son-in-law. He might have been a thorn in the brewery, among the
vats, but he would have been a flourishing young bay-tree in the
outer world of Baslehurst. She had, however, no wish to encourage
the growth of a thorn within her own premises, in order that Rachel
Ray, or such as she, might have the advantage of the bay-tree. Luke
Rowan had behaved very badly at her party. Not only had he failed
to distinguish either of her own girls, but he had, as Mrs. Tappitt
said, made himself so conspicuous with that foolish girl, that all
the world had been remarking it.

"Mrs. Butler Cornbury seemed to think it all right," said Cherry.

"Mrs. Butler Cornbury is not everybody," said Mrs. Tappitt. "I didn't
think it right, I can assure you;--and what's more, your papa didn't
think it right."

"And he was going on all the evening as though he were quite master
in the house," said Augusta. "He was ordering the musicians to do
this and that all the evening."

"He'll find that he's not master