“Leam?  Quite well, thanks.  But how do you know anything about her?” was Sebastian’s reply.

“I met her yesterday on the moor, and Rover introduced us,” answered Edgar laughing.

“How close she is!” said her father fretfully.  “She never told me a word about it.”

“Perhaps she thought the incident too trifling,” suggested Edgar, a little chagrined.

“Oh no, not at all!  In a place like North Aston the least thing counts as an adventure; and meeting for the first time one of the neighbors is not an incident to be forgotten as if it were of no more value than meeting a flock of sheep.”

Mr. Dundas spoke peevishly.  To a man who liked to be amused and who lived on crumbs this reserved companionship was disappointing and tiresome.

“Leam is at home making music,” said Fina disdainfully.  She had caught the displeased accent of her adopted father, and echoed it.

“Does she make much music?” asked Edgar with his hand under her chin, turning up her face.

The child shrugged her little shoulders.  “She makes a noise,” she said; and those who heard her laughed.

“That is not a very polite way of putting it,” said Edgar a little gravely.

“No,” said Josephine.

“You should speak nicely of your sister, my little one,” put in Sebastian.

Fina looked up into his face reproachfully.  “You called it a noise yourself, papa,” she said, pouting.  “You made her leave off yesterday as soon as you came in, because you said she made your head ache with her noise, and set your teeth—­something, I don’t know what.”

“Did I, dear?” he repeated carelessly.  “Well, we need not discuss the subject.  I dare say it amuses her to make music, as you call it, and so we need say no more about it.”

“But you did say it was a noise,” persisted Fina, climbing on to his knees and putting her arms round his neck.  “And I think it a noise too.”

“Poor Leam’s music cannot be very first-rate,” remarked Maria, who was a proficient and played almost as well as a “professional.”  “Four years ago she did not know her notes, and four years’ practice cannot be expected to make a perfect pianiste.”

“But a person may play very sweetly and yet not be what you call perfect,” said Edgar.

“Do you think so?” Maria answered with a frosty smile.  “I do not.”  Of what use to have toiled for thirty years early and late at scales and thorough-bass if a stupid girl like Leam could be allowed to play sweetly after four years’ desultory practice?  “Adelaide Birkett, if you will, plays well,” she added; “but Leam, poor child! how should she?”

“I hope I shall have an opportunity of judging for myself,” said Edgar with his company manner.—­“When will you come and dine here, Dundas?—­to-morrow?  You and your elder daughter:  we shall be very glad to see you.”

He looked to his mother.  Mrs. Harrowby had drawn her lips tight, and wore an injured air doing its best to be resigned.  This was Edgar’s first essay in domestic mastership, and it pained her, not unnaturally.