“Mr. —­ .  I don’t know your name,” said Peter, whose age Hugh had just been trying in vain to conjecture.

“Mr. Sutherland,” said the mother.

“Mr. Slubberman, are you a converted character?” resumed Peter.

“Why do you ask me that, Master Peter?” said Hugh, trying to smile.

“I think you look good, but mamma says she don’t think you are, because you say Sunday instead of Sabbath, and she always finds people who do are worldly.”

Mrs. Appleditch turned red —­ not blushed, and said, quickly: 

“Peter shouldn’t repeat everything he hears.”

“No more I do, ma.  I haven’t told what you said about —­ " Here his mother caught him up, and carried him out of the room, saying: 

“You naughty boy!  You shall go to bed.”

“Oh, no, I shan’t!”

“Yes, you shall.  Here, Jane, take this naughty boy to bed.”

“I’ll scream.”

“Will you?”

“Yes, I will!”

     And such a yell was there
     Of sudden and portentous birth,
     As if...

ten cats were being cooked alive.

“Well! well! well! my Peetie!  He shan’t go to bed, if he’ll be a good boy.  Will he be good?”

“May I stay up to supper, then?  May I?”

“Yes, yes; anything to stop such dreadful screaming.  You are very naughty —­ very naughty indeed.”

“No.  I’m not naughty.  I’ll scream again.”

“No, no.  Go and get your pinafore on, and come down to dinner.  Anything rather than a scream.”

I am sick of all this, and doubt if it is worth printing; but it amused me very much one night as Hugh related it over a bottle of Chablis and a pipe.

He certainly did not represent Mrs. Appleditch in a very favourable light on the whole; but he took care to say that there was a certain liberality about the table, and a kind of heartiness in her way of pressing him to have more than he could possibly eat, which contrasted strangely with her behaviour afterwards in money matters.  There are many people who can be liberal in almost anything but money.  They seem to say, “Take anything but my purse.”  Miss Talbot told him afterwards, that this same lady was quite active amongst the poor of her district.  She made it a rule never to give money, or at least never more than sixpence; but she turned scraps of victuals and cast-off clothes to the best account; and, if she did not make friends with the mammon of unrighteousness, she yet kept an eye on the eternal habitations in the distribution of the crumbs that fell from her table.  Poor Mr. Appleditch, on the other hand, often embezzled a shilling or a half-crown from the till, for the use of a poor member of the same church —­ meaning by church, the individual community to which he belonged; but of this, Mrs. Appleditch was carefully kept ignorant.

After dinner was over, and the children had been sent away, which was effected without a greater amount of difficulty than, from the anticipative precautions adopted, appeared to be lawful and ordinary, Mr. Appleditch proceeded to business.