He marshalled them into the drawing-room, where by dim firelight they could just discern the Professor and a certain good-natured horsey friend of the Captain’s, who sprang up from easy-chairs on the opposite sides of the fire to greet them, while the man hastily stirred up the fire, lighted the gas, dashed at the table, shutting up an open blotting-book that lay on it, closing an ink-bottle, and gathering up some torn fragments or paper, which he would have thrown into the scrap-basket but that it was full of little books on the hundred ways of dressing a pumpkin.  Then he gave a wistful look at the ami de la maison, as if commending the guests to him, and receiving a nod in return, retired.

“I fear we are too early,” said Lady Tyrrell.

“Fact is,” said the familiar, whose name Julius was trying to remember, “there’s been a catastrophe; cook forgot to order the turkey, went to bed last night in hysterics, and blew out the gas instead of turning it off.  No, no”—­as the guests expecting fatal consequences, looked as if they thought they had better remove themselves:  “she came round, and Duncombe has driven over to Backsworth to bring home the dinner.  He’ll soon be back.”

This not appearing greatly to reassure the visitors, the Professor added, “No, no, ladies.  Mrs. Duncombe charged me to say that she will be perfectly fixed in a short time, and I flatter myself that my wife is equal to any emergency.”

“It is very kind in her,” said Lady Tyrrell.

“I confess,” said Professor Tallboys, “that I am not sorry that such an occasion should occur of showing an American lady’s domestic powers.  I flatter myself they do not discredit her cause.”

Just then were heard the wheels of the drag, and in rushed one of the boys, grasping Eleonora’s skirts, and proclaiming, “We’ve got the grub!  Oysters and a pie!  Oh my!”

“Satisfactory!” said the friend.  “But let go, Ducky, you are rumpling Miss Vivian.”

“She’s coming to see the quarion!  You promised, Lena!  Here’s a jolly crayfish!  He’ll pinch!”

There was a small conservatory or glazed niche on one side of the room, into which the boy dragged Lenore, and Julius followed, dimly sensible of what the quarion might be, and hoping for a word with the young lady, while he trusted to his wife to occupy her sister.

The place contained two desolate camellias, with leaves in the same proportion as those on trees in the earlier ages of illumination, and one scraggy, leafless geranium, besides a green and stagnant tank, where a goldfish moved about, flapping and gasping, as the boy disturbed it in his search for the crayfish.  He absorbed all the conversation, so that Julius could only look back into the room, where an attempt at artistic effect was still dimly visible through accumulated litter.  The Venus of Milo stood on a bracket, with a riding-whip in her arms, and a bundle of working society tickets behind her, and her vis-a-vis, the Faun of Praxiteles, was capped by a glove with one finger pointing upwards, and had a ball of worsted tangled about his legs; but further observation was hindered by the man-servant’s voice at the outer door, “Master Ducky, where are you?  Your ma says you are to go to bed directly.”