now. Nobody will be here for a
quarter of an hour yet. You had better come in and see ma."

The two guests obeyed cheerfully. Ma was in the drawing-room, busily
adjusting the sashes of the three juvenile Misses Brown, with her mouth
full of pins. So all she could do was to smile pleasantly at her two
visitors and nod her head as they each came up and held out their hands
to be shaken.

"Better sit down," suggested Brown.

Parson and Telson thereupon retreated to the sofa, on the edge of which
they sat for another five or ten minutes, looking about them
complacently, and not attempting to break the silence of the scene.

The silence, however, was soon broken by a loud double knock at the hall
door, which was the signal for Mr Brown, senior, to bolt into the room
in a guilty way with one cuff not quite buttoned, and stand on the
hearthrug with as free-and-easy an air as if he had been waiting there a
quarter of an hour at least. Knock followed knock in quick succession,
and after the usual amount of fluttering in the hall, the greengrocer
flung open the drawing-room door and ushered in Dr and Mrs Patrick,
Miss Stringer, and half a dozen other arrivals.

Our two heroes, sitting side by side, unnoticed on the edge of the sofa,
had full opportunity to take stock of the various guests, most of whom
were strangers to them.

As every one appeared to be about the doctor's age, things promised
slowly for Parson and Telson, whose interest in Brown's party decidedly
languished when finally they found themselves swept off their perch and
helplessly wedged into a corner by an impenetrable phalanx of skirts.

But this was nothing compared with a discovery they made at the same
time that they had missed their tea! There was a merry rattle of cups
and spoons in a room far off, through the half-open door of which they
could catch glimpses of persons drinking tea, and of Brown handing round
biscuits and cake. The sight of this was too much to be borne. It was
at least worth an effort to retrieve their fatal mistake.

"I say," said Telson, looking for his friend round the skirts of a
stately female, "hadn't we better go and help Brown, Parson?"

Luckless youth! The lady in question, hearing the unexpected voice at
her side, backed a little and caught sight of the speaker.

"What, dear?" she said, benevolently, taking his hand and sitting down
on the sofa; "and who are you, my little man?"

"My little man" was fairly t