y, Mrs. Mackenzie, please--and if you will have the
kindness to look by the ecorche there, you will see that little packet
which I have left for you." Mrs. Mack, advancing, took the money. "I
thought that plaster of Paris figure was not the only ecorche in the
room."

"I want you to stay to dinner. You must stay, Pen, please," cried Clive;
"and be civil to her, will you? My dear old father is coming to dine
here. They fancy that he has lodgings at the other end of the town, and
that his brothers do something for him. Not a word about Grey Friars. It
might agitate Rosa, you know. Ah! isn't he noble, the dear old boy! and
isn't it fine to see him in that place?" Clive worked on as he talked,
using up the last remnant of the light of Christmas Day, and was
cleaning his palette and brushes, when Mrs. Mackenzie returned to us.

Darling Rosey was very delicate, but Doctor Quackenboss was going
to give her the very same medicine which had done the charming young
Duchess of Clackmannanshire so much good, and he was not in the least
disquiet.

On this I cut into the conversation with anecdotes concerning the family
of the Duchess of Clackmannanshire, remembering early days, when it
used to be my sport to entertain the Campaigner with anecdotes of the
aristocracy, about whose proceedings she still maintained a laudable
curiosity. Indeed, one of few the books escaped out of the wreck of
Tyburn Gardens was a Peerage, now a well-worn volume, much read by Rosa
and her mother.

The anecdotes were very politely received--perhaps it was the season
which made Mrs. Mack and her son-in-law on more than ordinarily good
terms. When, turning to the Campaigner, Clive said he wished that she
could persuade me to stay to dinner, she acquiesced graciously and at
once in that proposal, and vowed that her daughter would be delighted if
I could condescend to eat their humble fare. "It is not such a dinner
as you have seen at her house, with six side-dishes, two flanks, that
splendid epergne, and the silver dishes top and bottom; but such as my
Rosa has she offers with a willing heart," cries the Campaigner.

"And Tom may sit to dinner, mayn't he, grandmamma?" asks Clive, in a
humble voice.

"Oh, if you wish it, sir."

"His grandfather will like to sit by him," said Clive. "I will go out
and meet him; he comes through Guildford Street and Russell Square,"
says Clive. "Will you walk, Pen?"

"Oh, pray don't let us detain you," says Mrs. Macke