sigh accompanied the
words, and then Mrs. Falconer vanished; on the stairs she met Melville.

"I say, mother, what have you got for supper? I hope there will be
something that Arundel can eat. And, by the bye, mother, his name is
_Ar_undel, not Ar_un_del."

"Oh, is it, indeed! I don't know that it matters what a man is called.
As to the supper, there's a round of beef, and a pie, and a baked
custard, and plenty of bread and cheese."

"I wish you could have some made dish to-morrow. Big joints are all very
well for a pack of hungry schoolboys."

Mrs. Falconer did not reply sharply, as she did sometimes. She turned
and preceded Melville to his room, which was at the other end of the
long passage or corridor, which ran across the house, dividing it into
two parts, front and back. Melville followed her, and assumed a careless
and indifferent air, throwing himself on the deep window-seat and giving
a prolonged yawn.

A pack of cards lay on the drawers, with a dicebox.

"We had high words last night, Melville," his mother began; "and I was
sorry----"

"Don't scold or preach any more; I am sick of it. If you'll get my
father to let me travel, I'll come back in two years and settle into
quite the country-gentleman; but you can't expect a fellow to bury
himself here at my age with a set of rustics."

"I have heard all this before," his mother said, in a sad voice, very
unlike her usual sharp tones. "What I want to ask is this: you have
brought your friend here without so much as consulting your father or
me. I ask a plain question, is he a well-behaved man and fit to be the
associate of your sister and young brothers?"

"Fit to associate with them! His mother is an Honourable, his
grandfather was a peer. Fit to associate with us, indeed, who are
nothing but a pack of farmers!"

"So you said last evening. I don't care a fig for lords and ladies; nor
princes either, for that matter: but this I say--if your friend teaches
my boys to gamble and drink, and is not to be trusted with your sister,
but may talk all kinds of rubbish to her, and you know it, you'll repent
bringing him here to your latest day. I must just trust you, Melville,
and if you say he is a well-behaved young man, well, I will believe you,
and he is welcome to stay here."

"My good mother, you have got hold of the wrong end of the stick. The
fact is Gilbert Arundel is a trifle _too_ good. He has a sort of mission
to reform _me_. He has helped me out o