. Your papa is going to speak to him
this very day."

"What!--about Rachel?" asked Cherry, in dismay.

"About things in general," said Mrs. Tappitt. Then Mary Rowan
returned to the room, and they all went back upon the glories of
the ball. "I think it was nice," said Mrs. Tappitt, simpering. "I'm
sure there was no trouble spared,--nor yet expense." She knew that
she ought not to have uttered that last word, and she would have
refrained if it had been possible to her;--but it was not possible.
The man who tells you how much his wine costs a dozen, knows that he
is wrong while the words are in his mouth; but they are in his mouth,
and he cannot restrain them.

Mr. Tappitt was not about to lecture Luke Rowan as to his conduct in
regard to Rachel Ray. He found some difficulty in speaking to his
would-be partner, even on matters of business, in a proper tone, and
with becoming authority. As he was so much the senior, and Rowan so
much the junior, some such tone of superiority was, as he thought,
indispensable. But he had great difficulty in assuming it. Rowan had
a way with him that was not exactly a way of submission, and Tappitt
would certainly not have dared to encounter him on any such matter as
his behaviour in a drawing-room. When the time came he had not even
the courage to allude to those champagne bottles; and it may be as
well explained that Rowan paid the little bill at Griggs's, without
further reference to the matter. But the question of the brewery
management was a matter vital to Tappitt. There, among the vats,
he had reigned supreme since Bungall ceased to be king, and for
continual mastery there it was worth his while to make a fight. That
he was under difficulties even in that fight he had already begun
to know. He could not talk Luke Rowan down, and make him go about
his work in an orderly, every-day, business-like fashion. Luke
Rowan would not be talked down, nor would he be orderly,--not
according to Mr. Tappitt's orders. No doubt Mr. Tappitt, under
these circumstances, could decline the partnership; and this he
was disposed to do; but he had been consulting lawyers, consulting
papers, and looking into old accounts, and he had reason to fear,
that under Bungall's will, Luke Rowan would have the power of
exacting from him much more than he was inclined to give.

"You'd better take him into the concern," the lawyer had said. "A
young head is always useful."

"Not when the young head wants to be mast