od and strong brain; turbulent somewhat in
the pride of their strength, and intractable in the force of their
native powers; wanting polish, wanting consideration, wanting docility,
but sound, spirited, and true-bred as the eagle on the cliff or the
steed in the steppe.

A low tap is heard at the parlour door; the boys have been making such a
noise over their game, and little Jessy, besides, has been singing so
sweet a Scotch song to her father--who delights in Scotch and Italian
songs, and has taught his musical little daughter some of the best--that
the ring at the outer door was not observed.

"Come in," says Mrs. Yorke, in that conscientiously constrained and
solemnized voice of hers, which ever modulates itself to a funereal
dreariness of tone, though the subject it is exercised upon be but to
give orders for the making of a pudding in the kitchen, to bid the boys
hang up their caps in the hall, or to call the girls to their
sewing--"come in!" And in came Robert Moore.

Moore's habitual gravity, as well as his abstemiousness (for the case of
spirit decanters is never ordered up when he pays an evening visit), has
so far recommended him to Mrs. Yorke that she has not yet made him the
subject of private animadversions with her husband; she has not yet
found out that he is hampered by a secret intrigue which prevents him
from marrying, or that he is a wolf in sheep's clothing--discoveries
which she made at an early date after marriage concerning most of her
husband's bachelor friends, and excluded them from her board
accordingly; which part of her conduct, indeed, might be said to have
its just and sensible as well as its harsh side.

"Well, is it you?" she says to Mr. Moore, as he comes up to her and
gives his hand. "What are you roving about at this time of night for?
You should be at home."

"Can a single man be said to have a home, madam?" he asks.

"Pooh!" says Mrs. Yorke, who despises conventional smoothness quite as
much as her husband does, and practises it as little, and whose plain
speaking on all occasions is carried to a point calculated, sometimes,
to awaken admiration, but oftener alarm--"pooh! you need not talk
nonsense to me; a single man can have a home if he likes. Pray, does not
your sister make a home for you?"

"Not she," joined in Mr. Yorke. "Hortense is an honest lass. But when I
was Robert's age I had five or six sisters, all as decent and proper as
she is; but you see, Hesther, for all