ey were members of my family. Until that time comes,
you will only have me, and the new partner whom I expect immediately, to
provide for. What my partner's habits may be, I cannot yet say. But I
may describe myself as a man of regular hours, with an invariable
appetite that you may depend upon to an ounce."

"About breakfast, sir?" asked Mrs. Goldstraw. "Is there anything
particular--?"

She hesitated, and left the sentence unfinished. Her eyes turned slowly
away from her master, and looked towards the chimney-piece. If she had
been a less excellent and experienced housekeeper, Mr. Wilding might have
fancied that her attention was beginning to wander at the very outset of
the interview.

"Eight o'clock is my breakfast-hour," he resumed. "It is one of my
virtues to be never tired of broiled bacon, and it is one of my vices to
be habitually suspicious of the freshness of eggs." Mrs. Goldstraw
looked back at him, still a little divided between her master's chimney-
piece and her master. "I take tea," Mr. Wilding went on; "and I am
perhaps rather nervous and fidgety about drinking it, within a certain
time after it is made. If my tea stands too long--"

He hesitated, on his side, and left the sentence unfinished. If he had
not been engaged in discussing a subject of such paramount interest to
himself as his breakfast, Mrs. Goldstraw might have fancied that his
attention was beginning to wander at the very outset of the interview.

"If your tea stands too long, sir--?" said the housekeeper, politely
taking up her master's lost thread.

"If my tea stands too long," repeated the wine-merchant mechanically, his
mind getting farther and farther away from his breakfast, and his eyes
fixing themselves more and more inquiringly on his housekeeper's face.
"If my tea--Dear, dear me, Mrs. Goldstraw! what _is_ the manner and tone
of voice that you remind me of? It strikes me even more strongly to-day,
than it did when I saw you yesterday. What can it be?"

"What can it be?" repeated Mrs. Goldstraw.

She said the words, evidently thinking while she spoke them of something
else. The wine-merchant, still looking at her inquiringly, observed that
her eyes wandered towards the chimney-piece once more. They fixed on the
portrait of his mother, which hung there, and looked at it with that
slight contraction of the brow which accompanies a scarcely conscious
effort of memory. Mr. Wilding remarked.

"My late dear moth