was up to, or when he was coming.  How my poor sisters did laugh one Christmas when I got a letter from him in Italy, saying, ’The cole here is intense; but I have got a projick in my head, which is to get back to England as fast as rale and steme can possibly carry me’!  It wasn’t often that bad; but there was always something wrong.  I can’t think how it is, for he had no end of tutors and masters, except that he certainly was a very thick-headed fellow.”  She laughed merrily over the epistolary deficiencies of her late lord as she spoke, and every one joined her except Mrs. Ketchum, who was too shocked to countenance her.

“I saw Parsons in the very act of opening your letters this morning as I was roaming around in my Jesuit creepers, and thought you would be horrified; but it seems to be all right,” said Mr. Ketchum, glancing down at his slippers.  “Suppose, now, we have some breakfast:  it is late.  We haven’t nearly as much time as the patriarchs, anyway, and so much more use for it.”

“I have been thinking it would never be ready,” said Mrs. Sykes.

“And I am quite ready for it.  Isn’t that a nice new-laid egg for me?” asked Miss Noel, taking her place with the others.

“Mabel, eggs for Miss Noel every morning, if she likes them, and don’t you forget it,” said Mr. Ketchum. “‘Trouble’?  Not the least that ever was.  I have them for myself always.  An egg for me must be like Caesar’s wife, —­above suspicion.  I have provided myself with a conscientious High-Church hen that lays one every day of the year; though how she can think it worth her while, when they are selling for ten cents a dozen, I can’t imagine.—­What’s the matter, Heathcote?”

The matter was the “Jesuit creepers” and the hen combined, which had sent all the party into a little fit of laughter, from which Mr. Heathcote could not recover.

“I don’t see anything to double you up like a jack-knife,” said Mr. Ketchum, in allusion to his guest’s way of stooping over and having the laughs, as it were, shaken out of him by a superior force, while he got out at intervals,—­

“Jest—­creep—­High—­such a fellow!” in staccato jerks that made every one else laugh from sympathy.

“I call ’em that because Mother Schmidt made them for me so that I could steal a march on my mother-in-law, and she’s a Catholic and knew how to do it.  Talking of Catholics and what Washington calls the ‘Peskypalians,’ who is going to church to-day?”

“I am going to walk over to Dale with Bijou Brown and her father,” said Ethel.

“That isn’t as nice a church as ours.  We will take the others into Kalsing, eh, husband?” said Mabel; “that is, if they will come.”

“I will go to the scaffold with Mrs. Ketchum,” protested Sir Robert gallantly.  “What do you youngsters say?”

“Ramsay and I thought we would walk over to that little village on the crest of a hill that one can see from my window,” said Mr. Heathcote.